
cu /mu 






V. 



FROM THE PORTRAIT 

By JOHN S. SARGENT. R.A. 

AUTOGRAPH OF1889 
BEFORE MR. PULITZERS BLINDNESS 



HAD 



AFFECTED 



SIGNATURE 



THE 
STORY OF A PAGE 

thirty years of 

public service and public discussion 

in the editorial columns of 

The New York World 

BY 

JOHN L. HEATON 




HARPER & BbToTHERS PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

M C M X 1 1 1 






y 



COPYRIGHT, 1913. BY HArtPER ft BROTHERS 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1813 



J-N 



C?)CI,A35463() 



^ 



THE WORLD. AS ESTABLISHED BY JOSEPH PULITZER 
MAY lO. 1883:— 

"AN INSTITUTION THAT SHOULD ALWAYS FIGHT FOR PROGRESS 
AND REFORM. NEVER TOLERATE INJUSTICE OR CORRUPTION, 
ALWAYS FIGHT DEMAGOGUES OF ALL PARTIES. NEVER BELONG TO 
ANY PARTY. ALWAYS OPPOSE PRIVILEGED CLASSES AND PUBLIC 
PLUNDERERS. NEVER LACK SYMPATHY WITH THE POOR. ALWAYS 
REMAIN DEVOTED TO THE PUBLIC WELFARE. NEVER BE SATIS- 
FIED WITH MERELY PRINTING NEWS. ALWAYS BE DRASTICALLY 
INDEPENDENT. NEVER BE AFRAID TO ATTACK WRONG. WHETHER 
BY PREDATORY PLUTOCRACY OR PREDATORY POVERTY." 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. THE NEW ''WORLD" 1 

Mr. Pulitzer's Salutatory — Curious History of The World — 
Religious Daily Paper and Copperhead Organ — Its Suppression 
for Four Days in 1864 — General Conditions in 1883 in New York 
City and the Nation — Civil-service Reform in Its Infancy; Bal- 
lot Reform Not Begun — The Conditions of Journalism in New 
York — Bennett, Greeley, Brooks, Webb, and Bryant Gone — 
The Unique Position of The Sun — Brief Sketch of Mr. Pulitzer's 
Career — His Platform — The World Utterly Changed Over Night 
— Its Dedication to ''The Cause of the People." 

II. TRUE DEMOCRACY 12 

The World's Energetic Beginning — Not a Jack Cade of 
Journahsm — Political Conditions in New York City — Preparing 
for 1884— The Fighting Issues— The "Southern Brigadier" 
Still a Bugaboo— The Seymom- Tariff Plank of 1868— " Randall 
Democrats" and Reformers — Mr. Tilden as New York's "Favor- 
ite Son"— "Resolved, That We Must Have Money." 

III. GROVER CLEVELAND . 21 

Mr. Cleveland's Remai'kable Rise to Political Power — Tilden's 
Weakness as a Candidate — Cleveland and Hoadly as a Ticket — 
"No Free Whisky" — Blaine and RepubKcan "Principles" — 
Theodore Roosevelt's Dilemma — Tammany's Unavaihng Oppo- 
sition — "We Love Him Most for the Enemies He Has Made" — 
Butler and the Prohibitionists — The Fisher Letters — "Rum, 
Romanism, and Rebellion" — " Belshazzar's Feast" — The World 
Not a Cleveland Organ — Mr. Cleveland's Public Tribute to The 
World — Mr. Pulitzer's Insistence Upon Independence. 

IV. LIBERTY 37 

The Statue of Liberty, a New Colossus of Rhodes — How The 
World Raised the Pedestal — Hill and the Mugwumps — Civil- 
service Reformers Dissatisified with Cleveland — The Hungry 
Horde of Office-Seekers — Tariff Reform Delayed by a Divided 
Congress — Jake Sharp and the Boodle Aldermen — The Labor 
Troubles of 1886 — Henry George's Candidacy for Mayor — 
Theodore Roosevelt's First Defeat. 



vi CONTENTS 

PAoe 

V. DARKNESS 52 

Mr. Pulitzer's Great Misfortune — How a Blind Man Edited a 
Paper for Twenty-five Years — His Methods of Work — Friend- 
ship for Roscoe Conkhng — Presentation of the Gladstone Me- 
morial — The Pacific Railroad Frauds — Off-year Election of 
1887 and Cleveland's Tariff Message — Harrison's Nomination 
and Election — The Murchison Letter and the Campaign — 
The "Great Question" of War Taxation Left Unsettled. 

VI. "THE SHOPPING WOMAN" 66 

Blaine a Great Figure in the Harrison Administration — A 
"Forward" Policy in Samoa and Hawaii — The Mafia Murders 
in New Orleans — Mr. PuHtzer's Wiesbaden Despatch — 
Tammany Returns to Power in New York — A Century of 
Protection Closing in Gloom — McKinley Bill Stirs RepubU- 
cans to Revolt — The Debacle of 1890 — The Silver Question 
Begins to Trouble Democracy. 

VII. DAVID B. HILL 79 

Mr. Hill's Election as Senator — His Long Tenure of the 
Governorship — Disputes Cleveland's Standing as "Favorite 
Son" of New York — The Snap Convention — TAe World 
Forces Cleveland's Nomination — Its Course During the Home- 
stead Strike — An Incident of Editing at a Distance — Blaine 
and Chili; His Retirement — "The Next President Must Be a 
Democrat" — Chairman Hackett's Search for "Discreet" Men 
— Cleveland's Election and Its Lessons. 

VIII. REACTION 93 

A Period of Disaster — The Panic of 1893 and Its Political 
Consequences — Hawaii, and the Beginnings of Imperiahsm — 
A Bought Embassy — The Betrayal of the Wilson Bill — John 
Y. McKane's Downfall in Gravesend — Hill Runs for Governor 
Again and Is Beaten — The Pullman Strike — Cleveland Sends 
Soldiers — Repubhcans Sweep the Country in 1894 — The China- 
Japanese War — The Income Tax Declared Unconstitutional — 
Theodore Roosevelt, PoHce Commissioner, and the Short- 
Lived Reform in New York Under Mayor Strong. 

IX. VENEZUELA 110 

The Romance of a Young Explorer — Schomburgk's Line — 
Disputed Venezuelan Boundary Becomes Disquieting in 1895 
— Grover Cleveland's Message Threatening Great Britain — 
War Measm-es Passed by Congress — The Belligerent American 
Press — The World's Opposition — Its Christmas Messages of 
Good- Will from Abroad — Mr. Olney and Senator Lodge as 
Jingoes — How the Trouble Was Settled — Presentation of an 
Address to Mr. Pulitzer in England — His Eloquent Response, 



CONTENTS vii 

PAGE 

X. THE BOND RING 131 

Two Splendid Journalistic Exploits in Three Weeks — Vast 
Profit of the Morgan Syndicate on the February, 1895, Bond 
Sale — Failure to Protect the Government from the ''Endless 
Chain" of Gold Depletion— T/ie World's Offer of $1,000,000 
for Bonds — Its Telegrams to Bankers Throughout the Country 
Produce Hundreds of Millions of Offers for the Securities at 
Open Sale — The Ring Defeated — Immense Success of the 
Offered Bonds — How Republicanism Was Driven to Become 
the Sound-Money Party — Dilemma of the Democratic Press. 

XI. FREE SILVER 143 

Fiat Money in Previous Elections — Demonetization, "The 
Crime of 73" — Fall in Value of Silver Due to Increased Pro- 
duction — The Quantity Theory of Money — ^Why a Third Term 
for Cleveland Was Impossible — RepubHcan Party Hesitant 
Upon Silver Until the Eve of the Convention — The Ohio 
McKinley Straddle — WiUiam J. Bryan's ''Cross of Gold" 
Speech and His Nomination — The World's Good-Natured 
Campaign — Rising Price of Wheat Confutes the Silver Argu- 
ment — Senator Piatt and the Tammany Victory of 1897. 

XII. A WAR FOR AN IDEAL 159 

What Caused the War with Spain — The World as a Military 
Critic — The Firm Friendship of Britain in the Crisis — First 
News of the Battle of Manila — The Arrival of "The Man on 
Horseback" — Theodore Roosevelt and Boss Piatt — Forcing 
the Franchise Tax — Ramapo and Rapid Transit — Great 
Britain and the Boer War — President Kruger's Appeal to The 
World — Prompt Protests Against ImperiaUsm. 

XIII. IMPERIALISM 172 

Mr. Bryan's Tactical Error — He Assists the Spanish Treaty 
and Acquisition of the Philippines — Republican Platform 
Determined by the Results of the War — Reciprocity Yields to 
the Theory of Markets Won and Held by Mihtary Power — 
Theodore Roosevelt for Vice-President — The Free-Silver Is- 
sue Insisted Upon by Mr. Bryan — Devery and the New York 
PoHce Department — Governor Odell Rescues the City by 
Favoring Fusion — The Shepard-Low Campaign. 

XIV. IN PRAISE OF ROOSEVELT 186 

The Coal Strike and President Roosevelt's Energetic Action 
— Hill's Sociahstic Platform in New York — Defeat by a Nar- 
row Margin — The Rise of a New Power in Tammany Hall — 
Murphy's Skilful Campaign in 1903 — George B. McClellan's 
Long Service as Mayor — Hugh McLaughlin's Last Fight — The 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Northern Securities Merger Smashed by the Supreme Court — 
Growing Power of the President — Some Early Misgivings. 

XV. ALTON BROOKS PARKER 200 

How Parker Became a "Favorite Son" — High Finance and 
Practical Politics Take Possession of His Campaign — Par- 
ker's Gold Telegram to the St. Louis Convention — The Nom- 
ination of Judge Herrick for Governor — Cortelyou and the 
RepubHcan Campaign Fund — The Famous "Ten Ques- 
tions" — Judge Parker's Challenge — President Roosevelt's 
Unqualified Denial — His Re-election the "Triumph of Hope 
Over Experience." 

XVL "EQUITABLE CORRUPTION" 212 

James Hazen Hyde and the Struggle for the Control of the 
Equitable — The World Moves for a General House-Cleaning 
— Sale of the Company to Thomas F. Ryan — Governor 
Higgins's Reluctance to Move for an Investigation — The 
Armstrong Committee and Mr. Hughes — Mr. Perkins and 
the Republican Campaign Fund — The Permanent Good 
Results of the Probe — The Equitable Now in the Control of 
J. Pierpont Morgan — What Remains to Be Done. 

XVII. CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 228 

Rise of Mr. Hughes to Power in New York — Mr. Hearst's 
Candidacies for Mayor and Governor — George B. McClellan 
as Mayor — Governor Hughes's Bitter Conflicts with the Re- 
publican Bosses — His War upon Race-Track Gambhng — 
Roosevelt Compels his Renomination — His Fruitless Fight 
for Direct Primaries — Why Hughes was Side-Tracked from 
Politics to the Supreme Court — Mayor Gaynor's Adminis- 
tration. 

XVIII. "THE MAP OF BRYANISM" 247 

Mr. Bryan's Return from a Trip Around the World — He 
Conquers "The Enemy's Country" — Practically Nominated 
Two Years in Advance — The World's Strong Protest — Mr. 
Taft's Selection Becomes Certain — A Big-Stick Convention 
— The Nation's Need of an Opposition — Untimely Death of 
Gov. John A. Johnson of Minnesota — Taft Elected by His 
Opponent's Weakness — The Hard-Times Issue Goes for 
Naught. 

XIX. THE PANAMA LIBEL SUIT 263 

The Narrow Bar between Seas at Panama — De Lesseps 
and the Crash of the French Canal Company — Failure of 
Colombia to Ratify the Hay-Herran Treaty — The Prepared 
"Revolution" — President Roosevelt Takes the Isthmus— 



CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

William Nelson Cromwell and the Panama Companies — 
Mr. Roosevelt's Answer to The Indianapolis News — The 
World Denounces his Statements as False — Federal Libel 
Suit Ordered Under a Charles I. Law of 1662 — Failure of the 
Government's Case — Crushing Defeat Before the Supreme 
Court — Later Developments. 

XX. PUBLIC SERVICE 285 

The World's Long Fight for the Income Tax — "Reversing 
the Court" as to the Gas Trust — Working-men's Acts — The 
Japanese War — The Founding of the School of Journalism — 
Opposing the Catskill Water Folly — The World and the 
Courts — Opposition to the Recall of Judges and of Judicial 
Decisions — The Initiative and Referendum. 

XXI. WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT . 301 

Payne-Aldrich Act Repeats Story of the Wilson Bill 
— Mr. Taft's Dilemma — He Reluctantly Sides with the 
Tariff Stand-patters — Revolt in the House of Representa- 
tives, and Party Lines Broken — Failure of the Special Ses- 
sion — Arbitration Treaties Negotiated by Mr. Taft Beaten 
in the Senate — Canada Rejects Reciprocity Proffer — Two 
Fine Peace Measures thus Defeated — Mr. Taft, the Cor- 
porations and the Courts — Undeserved HumiHation of an 
Able President. 

XXII. THE LONG BATTLE FOR REFORM 312 

Indiana in 1880 — Vice-President Arthur and "Soap" — 
"Frying the Fat" in 1888— "Floaters" in "Blocks of Five" 
— Corruption Stirs the States to Action — The Silver Cam- 
paign Fund in 1896 — Mark Hanna and Hannaism — Trust 
Contributions in 1904— Harriman's $260,000 and "Where do 
I Stand?"— The Standard Oil Contribution Not Sent Back, 
as President Roosevelt Ordered — Ryan and Belmont's Vast 
Gifts — Cleaner Fighting in 1908 — Passage of Federal Cor- 
rupt Practices Acts. 

XXIII. AGAIN MR. ROOSEVELT .325 

The Early Career of a Great PoHtician — Mr. Roosevelt 
and the Edmunds Campaign — He Leaves the Independents 
to Support Blaine — His Troubled Presidency — Congress and 
the Secret Service Moneys — The Roosevelt Corporation 
PoHcy — The World Nominates Him for Senator — His Trip 
to Africa — Rushing to Defeat in the Stimson Campaign — 
Governor Dix's Vari-colored Administration — The Birth 
of the Progressive Movement — Mr. Roosevelt Takes 
Possession. 



X CONTENTS 

PAGB 

XXIV. ''ARMAGEDDON" 339 

The "Seven Little Governors" Invite Mr. Roosevelt into 
Action — He Throws His Hat into the Ring — Attempts to 
Grasp the Republican Nomination and is Defeated — The 
World Demands the Nomination of Woodrow Wilson — 
Mr. Bryan's Great Services at the Baltimore Convention 
— Crushing Defeat of Boss Murphy and the Reactionaries — 
Nomination of William Sulzer for Governor — Philosophy of 
Pohtics — Barren Results of the Bull Moose Campaign — 
"A New Birth of Freedom." 

INDEX 359 



INTRODUCTION 

Joseph Pulitzer bought The World from Jay Gould 
in May, 1883, and on the tenth day of the month assumed 
control of its columns. He was thirty-six years old. He 
did not live to complete thirty years in the ownership of 
the paper. He died in his sixty-fifth year, upon his 
yacht. Liberty, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. 

Mr. Pulitzer's chief concern in the management of The 
World was the conduct of its editorial page. Details of 
business management never engaged his attention longer 
than was necessary. He was a great news editor, with a 
marvelous instinct for seizing upon what was vital in 
passing events; but neither did he devote to the presenta- 
tion of the news his most earnest attention. 

His was the journalism of influence, of advocacy, of 
direction. He recognized in public opinion the power in 
modern government, the builder of modern civilization. 
It was his ambition to voice public opinion. It was his 
duty, as he saw it, to inform public opinion, to oppose 
public opinion, and even patriotic impulse, when he saw 
it to be in the wrong. To this duty he gave his con- 
stant thought with a singleness of purpose intensified by 
infirmity. 

An examination of the conduct of the editorial page of 
The World for thirty years is a study of a stirring epoch. 
The public advocacy of The World has in many ways 
affected American history. At some points it has made 
history. 



THE STORY OF A PAGE 



THE STORY OF A PAGE 



THE NEW "world" 



1860-1883 



Mr. Pulitzer's Salutatory — Curious History of "The World" — Religious 
Daily Paper and Copperhead Organ — Its Suppression for Four Days in 
1864 — General Conditions in 1883 in New York City and the Nation — 
Civil-service Reform in Its Infancy; Ballot Reform Not Begun — The Con- 
ditions of Journalism in New York — Bennett, Greeley, Brooks, Webb, and 
Bryant Gone — The Unique Position of "The Sun" — Brief Sketch of Mr. 
Pulitzer's Career — His Platform — '"The World" Utterly Changed Over 
Night — Its Dedication to " The Cause of the People." 

Without previous announcement the following leading 
editorial appeared in the New York World on the 11th 
of May, 1883: 

The entire World newspaper property has been purchased 
by the undersigned, and will, from this day on, be under 
different management — different in men, measures and meth- 
ods — different in purpose, policy and principle — different in 
objects and interests — different in sympathies and convictions 
— different in head and heart. 

Performance is better than promise. Exuberant assurances 
are cheap. I make none. I simply refer the public to the new 
World itself, which henceforth shall be the daily evidence of its 
own growing improvement, with forty-eight daily witnesses 
in its forty-eight columns. 



2 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

There is room in this great and growing city for a journal 
that is not only cheap but bright, not only bright but large, 
not only large but truly democratic — dedicated to the cause 
of the people rather than that of purse-potentates — devoted 
more to the news of the New than the Old World — that will 
expose all fraud and sham, fight all public evils and abuses — 
that will serve and battle for the people with earnest sincerity. 

In that cause and for that end solely the new World is hereby 
enlisted and committed to the attention of the intelligent 
public. Joseph Pulitzer. 

The newspaper for which this inspiring challenge was 
issued was an odd figure in American journalism, with a 
curious history. 

In 1860 a one-cent religious daily newspaper was begun 
in New York by Alexander Cummings and others, chiefly 
Philadelphians. It was called The World. It refused to 
print police or theatrical news or theatrical advertising; 
and by its small size, feeble management, and lack of 
popular support it seemed doomed to early death in spite 
of the wealth and standing of its founders. After a 
brief and costly career upon its chosen lines it was merged 
with the Courier and Enquirer; and, though the latter was 
a consolidation of two well-known journals, the shorter 
title, by some happy chance or stroke of foresight, was 
placed first in the new name. 

The World and Courier and Enquirer was bought in 
1862 by August Belmont, S. L. M. Barlow, and other 
influential Democrats sympathetic with the ^^ Albany 
regency.'' They placed it under the editorial charge of 
Manton Marble, who became in time its owner. During 
the Civil War The World was an organ of the New York 
Copperheads, as extreme opponents of the war policies 
of the government were called. In May, 1864, it was one 
of two or three New York newspapers that published the 
bogus Presidential proclamation issued for stock-jobbing 
purposes through the late Joseph Howard, which, in the 



THE NEW '^WORLD" 3 

name of President Lincoln, appointed a day of national 
fasting and prayer and called for four hundred thousand 
more soldiers. A guard was thrown into The World 
office on May 18, and for four days its publication was 
suppressed. Its editor was arrested, and was to have 
been imprisoned, like Howard, in Fort Lafayette, but was 
soon released. 

,Mr. Marble surrounded himself with able writers, but 
his newspaper was not a success. In 1876 he sold it to a 
group of men headed by Thomas A. Scott, president of 
the Pennsylvania Railroad. It was then known simply 
as The World. Scott put in charge of the paper William 
Henry Hurlbert, a writer of extraordinary brilliance 
and keenness. Of its character in Mr. Hurlbert's time 
St. Clair McKelway, the veteran editor of The Brooklyn 
Eagle, has written: 

It upheld Horatio Seymour when he insisted on the gold standard 
for New York State in a time of irredeemable paper currency. It 
warred on WiUiam M. Tweed's criminal alteration of the city charter 
from behind which he practised highway robbery to the tune of mil- 
lions in the name of law. It made now and then a stand for better 
municipal results by informal fusion of parties. But it never sought 
the art of commanding a hving by the approbation and confidence of 
the masses, for the tendency of its management inclined to the satis- 
faction of the capitalists with its steadiness, and to the applause of 
the carping, the cynical, the sciolistic, and the pessimistic by its selec- 
tion and treatment of topics. Its mistaken sense of humor comprised 
the discussion of serious matters from a comedy side and the discussion 
of trivial matters from a serious side. 

The lack of a serious purpose handicapped the venture 
heavily, and it languished until Scott's death. His estate 
sold it to Jay Gould, with the natural result that it lost 
money steadily, was distrusted by the people, and was 
unable even to represent effectively the policies or to 
serve the interests of its owner. In April, 1883, it had 
less than ten thousand circulation in New York City. 
It was known to be for sale, and possessed a membership 



4 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

in the Associated Press, but newspaper men of other 
towns who were tempted to try their fate in the metropolis 
fought shy of a property so heavily handicapped by its 
record. No man could hope to succeed with it who had 
not the genius to discern and the force to carry out a 
plan of divorcing it at once, and with conspicuous com- 
pleteness, from its former courses. 

Conditions of time and place supplied the opportu- 
nity for a great popular journal. The city and that 
part of the country which could be easily reached from 
New York were a tempting field for the political re- 
former. 

Hard hit by the Civil War and by the panic of 1873-77, 
New York had grown for twenty years less rapidly than 
has been its wont both before and since that period. The 
ten years of penny-pinching that saved its credit after 
the Tweed Ring's downfall had left it bare of modern 
improvements. The streets were ill-paved and dirty. 
Healthful tenements did not exist; the people of the 
congested districts were housed in old residences sub- 
divided into dark rooms, where disease worked ceaselessly 
to pile up a death-rate almost approaching that of St. 
Petersburg. Public morals and public decency were 
upon a low plane. Along Chatham Street sailors and 
countrymen were nightly robbed in low dives more like 
Port Said than like the New York of to-day. The con- 
nection between vice, the criminal gang, the higher 
police officials, and the political boss was an evil against 
which The World was to wage unceasing war during 
thirty years of gradually improving conditions. Political 
corruption was not so costly to the public purse as in 
Tweed's time, but it was almost as harmful to the moral 
sense of the community. Power was shared by rival 
Democratic ^^ halls," among which Tammany was again 
forging to the front, and by Republican bosses always 
ready for deals with the Democratic factions. Franklin 



THE NEW ^'WORLD" 5 

Edson was Mayor of New York, filling out the brief 
term of an unprogressive administration. 

Hard times had compelled children to go earlier to work, 
so that the total school registration of the state had risen 
but little in twenty years. The insane were kept in 
county almshouses, often a source of excessive profit to 
individuals and almost always neglected. Drunkenness 
was far more common than now. Preventive medicine 
was in its beginning, except as to smallpox, which vaccina- 
tion had not yet made a rarity. Ten hours was a day's 
work in the building trades. Street-car employees toiled 
fifteen or sixteen hours. So late as 1886 those of New 
York and Brooklyn struck for twelve hours a day. 

The turning-point for political decency in New York 
State and City had been reached in 1871, through the 
assault on the Tweed Ring and the storming of its Albany 
outposts. But in the federal government the Civil War 
had drawn after it a train of evil consequences which 
were as yet scarcely lessened. Judges of high federal 
courts had been driven from the bench by threat of 
impeachment. Congressmen had trafficked in appoint- 
ments. The triumph of the first Pacific railroad had 
been turned into shame by the disclosure that, as Senator 
Hoar said, '^ every step of that mighty enterprise had 
been taken in fraud.'' 

In the Presidency Grant had proved a disappointment. 
His very virtues, his simple-mindedness, his trust in his 
friends and his friends' friends, made him a gull for 
grafters. His private secretary was involved in the 
Whisky Ring scandals; his Secretary of War, Belknap, 
was impeached for bribery and resigned under fire. 
The Vice-President and the Speaker of the House were 
implicated in questionable railroad transactions. 

The fraud that counted in Rutherford B. Hayes as 
President had so inflamed the anger of the majority that 
civil war might once more have broken out had Tilden 



6 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

been less patient in his patriotic desire to avoid conflict. 
For years longer the country was fated to endure the 
belated disputes of reconstruction; in the North the 
waving of the '^bloody shirt," in the South impassioned 
protest against negro domination upheld by federal 
bayonets, was the political highroad to preferment. 

Hayes, unpopular with politicians and handicapped by 
a clouded title, was brushed aside after four years by 
stronger men. The movement for the third-term nomi- 
nation of General Grant met the renewed onset of the 
friends of James G. Blaine, and, between the two, in the 
fiercest national convention then of record, James A. Gar- 
field became the compromise candidate. As President, 
Garfield intensified the faction fight between the Grant 
and Blaine forces and was shot down by Guiteau. Ches- 
ter A. Arthiu", who succeeded him, was desirous of winning 
a renomination by a creditable administration. A former 
associate of local bosses in New York, who made light of 
corruption at the polls and who had been removed from 
office by President Hayes, he had been chosen to placate 
the Grant faction, and the Blaine men would have none 
of him. His was the crippled administration that in 1883 
was drawing to a close. By forcing the nomination of 
Charles J. Folger for Governor of New York in 1882 
Arthur had caused the revulsion of public feeling that 
swept Grover Cleveland into office by an unprecedented 
majority and made him one of the conspicuous leaders 
of the national Democracy. 

The attempt of Grant in 1870, and again of Hayes, to 
introduce the merit test in political appointments had 
failed, and not until 1883 was the Pendleton bill passed, 
which applied the examination method to fourteen thou- 
sand unimportant federal offices. Consulships and diplo- 
matic appointments and important posts in the home 
administration were held at the disposal of political and 
financial power and became the fruitful soiirce of faction. 



THE NEW ^'WORLD'' 7 

The people had no adequate way of imposing their will 
upon their public servants. Nowhere in the United 
States was there a secret ballot. The citizen might 
prepare with ^' pasters'^ or other crude devices his '^vest- 
pocket vote/' but he was balanced on election day by 
some poor fellow who for fear of loss of employment or 
by some knave who for a fee marched to the polls holding 
in sight the folded ticket the district captain put into his 
hands. Not until after five years of The World's new 
ownership was the Australian ballot introduced into any 
state. The first effective blow was thus struck at the 
buying of votes and the intimidation of voters when the 
buyer could no longer be certain that the seller would 
stay bought, and when the intimidator could be fairly 
sure that his victim would betray him. 

In such a state of public affairs the short cut to many re- 
forms lay through a change in the national administration. 

The journalistic forces that could be marshaled for that 
or any other public purpose were weak compared with what 
they are to-day. The principal newspapers of New York 
sold at four cents. A small journal of great circulation, 
The Evening News, was the organ of Tammany and of 
the sporting interests, but had no standing in the nation. 
The group of editors whose able personal journalism 
had enlivened New York in the Civil War period had 
passed. Bennett and Greeley, James Brooks, of The 
Express, and Wilham Cullen Bryant, of The Evening Post, 
had died within the six years from 1872 to 1878. James 
Watson Webb, of the old Courier, yet lingered, a man 
past eighty, long retired from journalism. The Times 
and the Tribune, rapidly recovering under Whitelaw 
Reid's editorship from the ruin that threatened it in 1872 
when Horace Greeley was the Liberal Republican and 
Democratic candidate for President, competed for the 
favor of Republican readers. It seemed as if journalism 
had reacted from its feverish activity during the anti- 



8 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

slavery agitation, the war and reconstruction, and was 
unconsciously awaiting the new issues, new leadership, 
and new methods which should revivify it. 

In the prevaihng condition of journalistic conservatism 
two strong personalities were conspicuous, those of E. 
L. Godkin of the Evening Post, a journal of small circu- 
lation but wide influence, and Charles A. Dana of the Sun. 
The Sun, sold for two cents a copy, had a circulation 
surpassing that of the other morning papers, and was a 
masterpiece of intelligent compression, with pungent edi- 
torial comment which made it on the Democratic side the 
foremost power in journalism in the East. But The Sun 
was not in full sympathy with Democratic doctrines, and 
failed to represent the party. It had referred to General 
Hancock while candidate for the Presidency in 1880 as 
^'a good man weighing two hundred and forty pounds," 
and it was about to oppose another Democratic candidate. 

That Mr. Pulitzer saw the tactical advantage which 
this opening gave is certain, for he saw most things; 
and he had been The Sun^s Washington correspondent 
for a brief but active period. But the driving-power 
which sent the immigrant young man of thirty-six years 
to try conclusions in the metropolis was his desire for 
wider leadership, his wish to grasp the great journalistic 
opportunities of the metropolis. 

Born in Hungary in 1847, Joseph Pulitzer had come to 
America in 1864, and at seventeen had enlisted in the 
First New York Cavalry. He served eight months — to 
the end of the war. At twenty-one he was a reporter on 
the St. Louis Westliche-Post under Carl Schurz; at 
twenty-two, a member of the Missouri Legislature; at 
twenty-five, a member and the secretary of the Cincin- 
nati Liberal Republican convention which nominated 
Horace Greeley for President; at twenty-seven, a member 
of the Missouri constitutional convention; at thirty- 
three, the founder of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 



THE NEW ^^WORLD" 9 

This feat was the baptism of his blade. It drew to him 
the attention of newspaper men throughout the country 
and gained thus early their confidence and the expectation 
of high achievement. It was a success accomplished 
without adequate resources, yet without faltering in his 
determination to follow the rule of absolute independence 
— an almost bankrupting independence that took him 
within about three hundred dollars of his total cash re- 
sources before he succeeded in establishing, upon the 
same lines that he later followed with The World, a 
newspaper that has since wielded an immense power in 
the Middle West. 

There was not a conservative hair upon Mr. Pulitzer's 
head or a conservative ounce of blood within his body. 
He was a born independent. But where Carl Schurz 
and others with whom he had taken part in the Liberal 
Republican movement looked back with longing to the 
Republican party, as in imagination they could see it 
^'builded closer to their hearts' desire," Mr. Pulitzer had 
ceased to expect political reforms at its hands. He was 
an independent; the logic of the situation and his own in- 
stinct for opposition made him an independent Democrat. 

What was the political creed of this rising power in 
American journalism at the moment when he grasped 
his great opportunity? He printed it on May 17, 1883, 
under the title '' The World's Platform": 

1. Tax luxuries. 

2. Tax inheritances. 

3. Tax large incomes. 

4. Tax monopolies. 

5. Tax the privileges of corporations. 

6. A tariff for revenue. 

7. Reform the civil service. 

8. Punish corrupt office-holders. 

9. Punish vote-buying. 

10. Punish employers who coerce their employees in elections. 
2 



10 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

But Mr. Pulitzer had not waited six days to sound his 
challenge, nor one. To make The World trusted of the 
people it was necessary to change its character utterly 
over night. How well he succeeded there is a vivid 
record from a non-professional witness. Writing from 
Mount PoconOj Pennsylvania, June 4, 1912, to The World, 
Ryerson W. Jennings, of Philadelphia, said: 

Crossing the Chestnut Street bridge in Philadelphia many years ago, 
I bought from a bright-eyed newsboy the first number of the New 
York World under Joseph Pulitzer's management. I saw at a glance 
that the emancipation of the newspapers of this country had com- 
menced, and the people were to get the news of the day in an uncolored 
form; that great wrongs were to be righted; that light was to be let 
in where darkness covered it; that crooked things were to be made 
straight. 

Never, indeed, was transformation more radical. Mr. 
Pulitzer was naturally obliged to work with the news 
staff that Mr. Hurlbert had collected, though he began at 
once to make additions from the local field, enlisting many 
clever writers. But the change in tone was instantly 
perceptible. The old black head-line carrying the title 
was changed to one nearly resembling that used to-day. 
Heavy head-lines over articles were replaced by lighter, 
smaller, more modest type. Big and deep head-lines in 
the New York press, a blemish to many critics, were no 
invention of The World. They came later, and gradually. 
In the much more important matter of the treatment of 
the news there was a revolution. An experienced man 
scanning the first page of The World for May 10 and May 
11, 1883, could see at a glance that in the interim a 
master had come. More interest, more earnestness, more 
heart and thought appeared throughout. 

But the greatest change was in the editorial page. 
Anxious as Jay Gould was to get rid of a useless property, 
he had nearly defeated the negotiations for the sale of The 
World by stipulating that one or two editorial writers 



THE NEW '^WORLD'' 11 

be retained. Mr. Pulitzer preferred to urge new measures 
with new men, and some diplomacy was necessary to 
smooth away the difficulty. An earnestness of purpose 
which Gould writers might have found it embarrassing to 
assume took the place of the old cynicism. An eagerness 
to attack corporate and political rascality foreign to The 
World of May 10th, which defended them or ignored them 
or joked about them, appeared in The World of May 11th. 
Men about town who had read Hurlbert's beautifully 
written but cynical articles rubbed their eyes in amaze- 
ment. Many such men promptly dropped the paper; 
Mr. Pulitzer did not share the fears then common with 
newspaper men undertaking such tasks of reorganization 
lest they should lose old readers before gaining new 
ones. Deserters were more than made good by men in 
sympathy with the new editor's aims. 

Journalists were quick to note the transformation, 
usually with disapproval, as men are wont to disapprove 
portents that war against the familiar and accustomed. 
A shrewd impression was that of the Philadelphia Chronicle 
of May 14th: 

The change which is apparent to-day on every page of the New York 
World in its tone, character, and style is a most gratifying one. There 
is force and vitahty in its utterances, something of the snap, the 
breeze, and the racy flavor of the West, from which its new owner, 
Mr. Joseph PuUtzer, comes. The same space which formerly was 
devoted to the verbose discussion of one or two leading topics now 
contains short and crisp articles on a half-dozen or more subjects, 
and there is something positive and emphatic in its dehverances that 
is truly refreshing when compared with the elegant but uninfluential 
literary estheticism that marked its previous control. Above all, the 
sardonic leer and avaricious grin of Mr. Jay Gould are no longer 
discernible in its columns. 

Violently, harshly, conspicuously, unmistakably turned 
in a new direction and plainly ^'dedicated to the cause of 
the people," the new World was launched upon a career 
which its rivals prophesied would be brief. 



11 

TRUE DEMOCRACY 

1883-1884 

"The TTorZcZ's" Energetic Beginning — Not a Jack Cade of Journalism — 
Political Conditions in New York City — Preparing for 1884 — The Fighting 
Issues — The ^'Southern Brigadier'^ Still a Bugaboo — The Seymour Tariff 
Plank of 1868 — ^^ Randall Democrats" and Reformers — Mr. Tilden as 
New York's ''Favorite Son'' — "Resolved, That We Must Have Money." 

It was necessary to The World's success to make it clear 
at once that it was no longer the tool of Jay Gould. It 
was necessary to its owner's plan that he should make 
it equally clear that The World would be no Jack Cade 
of Journalism. 

Under the heading ^^True Democracy" the first issue 
under Mr. Pulitzer's control mapped the course he in- 
tended to pursue: 

Democracy, sometimes from ignorance, more frequently 
from malice, has been represented as radicalism and destructive- 
ness. It is nothing of the kind. True democracy, based on 
equal rights, recognizes the millionaire and the railroad mag- 
nate as just as good as any other man and as fully entitled 
to protection for his property under the law. But true democ- 
racy will not sanction the swallowing up of liberty by property 
any more than the swallowing up of property by communism. 

^ There was no lack of specific occasions to make good 
a promise to espouse true democracy. If in the crucial 
first months of its career it scored the ^^ scandalous mis- 
management" of the New York Central Railroad, The 



J 



TRUE DEMOCRACY 13 

World denounced as hotly the sham radicalism of Ben 
Butler in Massachusetts, which was so soon narrowly to 
miss involving the whole country in misfortune. If it 
attacked the Ramapo Water Company^s scheme to exploit 
the city, prelude of a more famous later fight, it also 
assailed the ^^ silver kings'' for the manipulation that 
gave currency to the trade-dollar. If it exposed star- 
route frauds in the Post-office Department, neither had 
it any mercy for greenbackism or repudiation. If it 
explained why the police could not break into Wall Street 
gambling-houses and cart away the apparatus because 
^^The law makes a distinction in gambling; faro is 
forbidden, roulette is ruled out, poker is prohibited, 
but margins are sanctioned by law, and corners are 
legitimate," it also lost no opportunity of disclaiming 
tolerance for dangerous methods of gaining popular aims. 

It was fortunate for the new venture that 1883 was an 
off year in politics. With its limited circulation and feeble 
equipment it could have done little then to further its 
policies. Indeed, there was but scant time to prepare 
for the struggle of the following year. To the weakening 
of the dominant party, and especially to the exposure of 
corruption and the building up of a public sentiment that 
would cure the evil, it devoted its keenest invective. 

It was Democracy in the nation which The World sought 
to foster as the first condition of reform. For a time 
it waged no war against local organizations of Democracy. 
If the federal government was to be turned over to other 
hands there was need in New York of the help of every 
Democratic faction, and none of these factions was so 
potent for harm, even locally, as the Republican machine 
with its allies commonly in power in Washington and 
Albany. 

Tammany Hall had been chastened by the fate of its 
members who, with Tweed, had filched from the people 
and had fled their wrath, and John Kelly, its boss, was 



14 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

generally considered as honest as he was obstinate. He 
had favored reform, and for that reason was the logical 
leader of the Hall after the debacle. 

Irving Hall bore no good repute, but was the weakest 
of the three. 

The County Democracy generally acted with the up- 
state Democrats. Such men as Abram S. Hewitt and 
Edward Cooper were prominent in its counsels, and it 
furnished most of the reform mayors that followed Tweed's 
downfall. Though Samuel J. Tilden was friendly with 
Kelly, the County Democracy most nearly represented his 
policies. Yet, in spite of the general acceptance of this 
faction as best representing New York Democracy, The 
World protested in the interest of harmony against the 
Robert Roosevelt resolution which in 1883 passed the 
state committee by a bare majority, committing that 
body in advance to accept as ^^ regular" the seventy-two 
delegates of the County Democracy in the state conven- 
tion. The party nominations in that year were unim- 
portant, but with 1884 in view The World urged har- 
mony in national matters upon the factions. 

Besides turning its searchlight upon rottenness in the 
party in power The World had to meet in the preliminary 
tactics of the Presidential campaign three questions of 
importance: the question of the tariff, the question of 
the candidates, the question of Southern rights within 
the Union and the ^^ bloody shirt." 

It may seem strange that at so recent a date the 
'^Southern Brigadier" was still a bugaboo. But the issue 
had its practical effect and must be considered. Its sur- 
vival might be a perversion of justice and common sense, 
but its influence in swaying the people could not be ignored. 
In the South the white aristocrat and former slave- 
holder was the natural leader of the people until Democ- 
racy could adjust itself to new conditions. Carpet-baggism 
had unleashed upon the late Confederate states the most 



TRUE DEMOCRACY 15 

shocking corruption, which honest Southern men could 
less easily forgive than the hard blows dealt in the war. 
The nation had need of the sense of honor and the political 
acumen of the best men of the South. How was it to 
resume the employment of them in the public service? 

The Republicans had sharpened sarcasm as a shrewd 
weapon against themselves by their readiness to take up 
Mahone and Riddleberger, who won a brief success in 
Virginia, fusing the Republicans and a portion of the 
Democracy for ^^readjusting" the state debt. As The 
World remarked of ^^Two Kinds of Rebels" the ^^ fiercest 
Southern brigadier is a patriotic American citizen, en- 
titled to enjoy equal rights with the patriots of Ohio or 
Massachusetts and to hold public oflSce, provided he will 
ally himself politically with the Republican party." 

As to the tariff The World pinned its faith to the 
Seymour doctrine of 1868. Upon a pronounced tariff- 
for-revenue plank, such as Frank Hurd and other ex- 
tremists were urging, the Democrats could not win; 
and to win, for the house-cleaning that might follow 
victory, was a duty. Even the issue of a lower tariff was 
not quite so clearly defined as it has since become. Not 
until nearly a decade later did the trust movement get 
fiilly under way, which was to ^^kill competition and 
capitalize the corpse." 

A moderate reduction of the tariff could only be looked 
for from Democrats, and only from the reforming wing 
of the Democracy. During the Ohio campaign of 1883 
The World especially commended the tariff plank adopted 
by the Democrats. After the election in October it 
reminded the Republicans that their alarm lest the tariff 
be lost sight of was unfounded, and said: 

An election has been held this week in Ohio. The Democrats 
met last Jmie to nominate candidates and construct a plat- 
form. In the platform was the following plank: 



16 THE STORY OF A PAGE ' 

"We favor a tariff for revenue, limited to the necessities of a 
government economically administered, and so adjusted in its 
application as to prevent unequal burdens, encourage productive 
interests at home and afford just compensation to labor, but not 
to create or foster monopolies. '' 

Upon a full vote of the State, after more than three months* 
thoughtful consideration, the people of Ohio have indorsed 
this tariff plank by over 12,000 majority. 

It has won a glorious victory in Ohio this year. It will win 
a yet more glorious victory in the Union next year. 

The World's championship of the Ohio platform was 
more than a stirring voice in the preliminary struggle of 
1883. It heartened the national Democracy for the greater 
contest. It blazed the way for Grover Cleveland's tariff 
policy and message. 

Bound up with the tariff was the question of the can- 
didates. With the House of Representatives Democratic 
and a great wave of discontent sweeping the country, 
there was a chance for Democratic success at the polls 
in the Presidential year if the party could be restrained 
from blundering. The first Democratic President after 
the war must come from the genuinely Democratic wing 
of the party, and not from the ''assistant Republicans," of 
whom Samuel J. Randall, of Philadelphia, was the 
chief representative. Months before the Speakership 
contest in December we find The World on May 17th 
making its position unmistakable: 

We oppose Mr. Randall's election because he is not in accord 
with the Democracy in its opposition to the encroachments of 
corporate monopolies. It is unquestionably true that there 
is a monopolistic wing of the Democratic party. It is equally 
true that its principles and objects are offensive to the great 
mass of the party. Mr. Randall's interests are identified with 
the monopolies of his own State, and his sentiments are friendly 
to them rather than to the people. 



TRUE DEMOCRACY 17 

Such considerations, in which the position of the tariff 
reformers was masked behind the popular cry of anti- 
monopoly, prevailed, and the election of John G. Carlisle 
as Speaker in December, 1883, put the reformers in con- 
trol of the party. This wing of the party in the autumn 
elections had won encouraging victories. In its search 
for Democratic Presidential material and to recruit the 
ranks for the coming struggle The World had entered 
heart and soul into the campaigns of Leon Abbett for 
Governor in New Jersey and George Hoadly in Ohio. 
Thus it gave notice of its intent to be not a local but a 
national power, and it aided greatly in their campaigns. 
The political revolt which in 1882 had swept a Democratic 
House of Representatives into office still had the force 
to secure the choice of these two strong Democratic 
governors in states counted upon by the Republicans in 
Presidential years. 

More pivotal were the two great doubtful states of 
New York and Indiana. No election, it was held, could 
be carried without their electoral votes. The attempt of 
1880 to win upon a tariff-for-revenue plank, with a can- 
didate who assured the country that the tariff was a 
local issue, had so disastrously failed that there was little 
danger of its repetition. But there was danger of an 
attempt to angle for New York's vote by the nomina- 
tion of Mr. Tilden, the unseated victor of 1876, never a 
robust man and now nearing his seventieth year. Of 
this movement The World said on August 28th: 

The western Democratic sentiment reported in our special 
correspondence from Saratoga as in favor of the old ticket is 
based on what old Bill Allen would call a ''barren ideality." 
This sentiment takes the shape of asserting that the old ticket 
was defeated by fraud. This is true. Then it asserts that the 
fraud can be rebuked only by nominating the victims of that 
fraud. This is a fallacy. The real victims of the fraud were 
not the two eminent citizens who were cheated out of their 



18 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

offices, but the millions of honest Democratic voters who were 
cheated out of their votes. 

Throughout this year of preparation The World made 
it clear that it was ready to support Mr. Tilden if he 
were nominated, but it cast about for other material — 
first and far foremost, of course, Grover Cleveland, the 
^Hidal-wave" Governor of New York, then John G. 
Carlisle, Governor Hoadly, and others, as they succes- 
sively rode upon the crest of some wave of public triumph. 

And always, day after day, it poured upon the Repub- 
lican party the full fire of its batteries. The extracts 
that follow, taken at intervals throughout the year, may 
do more than illustrate the skill of its attack. They 
may remind us how vital was the need of such advocacy 
in a period of great political unrest : 

Will not the people remember that Roscoe Conkling — in 
intellect a giant among pygmies, in public life an honest man 
in the midst of corruption and rascality — has been retired by 
his own party to private life? That Bristow, who exposed 
the Whisky Ring frauds, has been politically killed by the 
Republican organization? That Dorsey, Brady, "Lo" Ses- 
sions, and A. D. Barber — the two former on trial, the two latter 
under indictments that will, probably, never be tried — are 
still active and powerful in the Republican organization? — 
June 5, 1883. 

The party Judge Foraker represents has been plundering the 
Government for twenty-three years. Its plunder commenced 
with war contracts, shoddy uniforms, shoddy blankets, and 
"cooked-up" rifles without any connection between the lock 
and the barrel. It has been continued through whisky rings, 
subsidy rings, Treasury rings, Interior Department rings. 
Credit Mobilier rings, Washington District rings, public- 
building rings and star-route rings, down to the star-route 
trial farce and raids upon the Treasury by some of the Govern- 
ment lawyers. — June 26 ^ 1883. 



TRUE DEMOCRACY 19 

From time to time the leaders of the Republican party hold 
conventions in which they formulate certain moral axioms and 
platitudes which they call the platform of the party. 

The real platform of the party, however, is expressed in pri- 
vate and personal letters exchanged between these leaders after 
the mummery of the convention is over. This, the real plat- 
form, may be written in one line — ''We want money." 

Blaine writes to Dorsey that in failing to send money to 
Maine he is ''imperiling the whole campaign." 

Allison writes to Jewell: "Money must be had and sent to 
Indiana." 

Stewart Woodford writes to Jewell from West Virginia: 
"With $25,000 Sturgis and Atkinson can make an effective 
campaign." 

John F. Lewis, Mahone's lieutenant, writes: "The expendi- 
ture of $50,000 will insure the electoral vote of Virginia for 
Garfield and Arthur. ' Help us, Cassius, or we sink.' " 

Mr. Henderson, of Iowa, writes to Dorsey: "Put money in 
thy purse." 

Richard Smith, of the Cincinnati Gazette, who has been 
called the Good Deacon Richard Smith, was alive to the need 
of money. He writes: "There should be $50,000 judiciously 
placed in each of these States [Ohio and Indiana] within the 
next ten days." . . . Everybody wanted money. What did 
they want it for? 

The Republican party claims to have saved the nation, to 
have paid off the debt, settled the finances and pensioned 
the soldiers. It has held power for twenty-odd years. It 
has taken credit to itself for the prosperity of the country; has 
had all the support of capital, of protected interests, of the 
army of oflace-holders and of all privileged classes. 

Yet when a national election came around, when a great 
national battle was to be fought, the grand old party could find 
only one battle-cry. Danger of defeat changed all its boasting 
into abject terror and its platform shrank to a single line: 

Resolved, That we must have money. — August 30, 1883, 

"J. Warren Keifer, of Ohio, is a corrupt and shameless man," 
said the Republican Times yesterday. 



20 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

On the same day the party of moral ideas — the grand old 
party^ — voted almost unanimously for J. Warren Keifer, of 
Ohio, for Speaker of the House of Representatives. — December 
4, 1883. 

Such hammering won public approval. Within one 
week from the time when Mr. Pulitzer, taking hold of a 
moribund journal of high literary quality but negligible 
influence, promised to '^ serve and battle for the people 
with earnest sincerity" he had shaped a course which was 
to hearten Democracy and hasten political independence; 
within six months the success of his venture was assured; 
within a year it was a marvel in the journalistic field; 
within eighteen months it had caused the election of the 
first Democratic President since the Civil War, as that 
President appreciatively acknowledged. 



Ill 

GHOVER CLEVELAND 

Mr. Cleveland's RemarJcable Rise to Political Power — Tilderi's Weakness 
as a Candidate — Cleveland and Hoadly as a Ticket — "No Free Whisky" 
— Blaine and Republican "Principles'' — Theodore Roosevelt's Dilemma — 
Tammany's Unavailing Opposition — "We Love Him Most for the 
Enemies He Has Made" — Butler and the Prohibitionists — The Fisher 
Letters — "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion" — " Belshazzar' s Feast" — 
"The World" Not a Cleveland Organ — Mr. Cleveland's Public Tribute to 
"The World" — Mr. Pulitzer's Insistence Upon Independence. 

Stephen Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, 
New Jersey, March 17, 1837. There were nine children 
in the family, and after the death of his father, a Pres- 
byterian clergyman, straitened means prevented the 
future President from obtaining a college education. He 
became office-boy in a Buffalo law firm, and in 1859 was 
admitted to the bar. In 1863 he was elected assistant 
district attorney in Erie County, and in 1869 sheriff. In 
1873 he resumed the practice of the law. In 1881 he was 
nominated for Mayor of Buffalo and elected as a Demo- 
crat in a community usually Republican. He was not 
especially ambitious; political tasks came to him un- 
sought and were accepted in the line of public duty. 
He was an excellent mayor, upright and painstaking. 

In 1882 the Republican party in New York was rent by 
the Stalwart-Halfbreed war, and President Arthur was 
accused of forcing upon the state convention the nomina- 
tion for governor of Charles J. Folger, a man of ability 
but devoid of magnetism, his Secretary of the Treasiu-y 
and a Stalwart. The Democrats named the reform 



22 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Mayor of Buffalo, and Mr. Cleveland was elected by 
192,854 votes. In Albany he had made an excellent 
record by his messages, and especially by his vetoes, when 
the young journalist who was to elect him President came 
to New York. 

Throughout 1883 The World watched Cleveland's course 
with keen appreciation of its strength and honesty. 
Here was Presidential material placed where it was most 
available, in the greatest debatable state. But New York's 
favorite son was still the cheated Tilden. The senti- 
mental appeal of his wrongs at the hands of the Electoral 
Commission was almost irresistible. 

As early as June 2, 1883, The Worlds stating its faith in 
'^principles, not personalities," said: 

Mr. Tilden is still a fine intellectuality. He represents a 
sentiment. He has a great party behind him. ... He has 
the admiration of thousands who see and feel and know nothing 
else except that he was fairly elected in 1876. He has enormous 
wealth. But with all that he has no more chance of ever 
again becoming President than Napoleon III. had of regaining 
the French crown after Sedan. 

Revolutions never go backward. 

Mr. Tilden's Sedan was when he consented to the Electoral 
Commission. His Chiselhurst is Graystone. 

During the summer The World continued to point out 
Mr. Tilden's weakness. He ^^practically ceased to be a 
leader when he lost the Presidency. Since then his 
mouth has been closed, and he utterly refused to advise and 
lead his party on any question." Here appears the new 
editor's usual insistence upon leaders and ideas. ''Mr. 
Tilden," the argument continued, "has claims upon the 
sympathies of Democrats. He is a real thinker. But 
he is not a party leader on any issue of the hour. His 
great effort is to conceal his ideas. After all, ideas lead 
parties, not men." 



GROVER CLEVELAND 23 

A leader of a more modern type, bolder and more uncom- 
promising, appealed to The World, ^'Does any Repub- 
lican really believe," it asked, 'Hhat Grover Cleveland, 
elected in 1882 by 193,000 majority over the Republican 
candidate, and with a clean record for honesty, capacity, 
and economy in his administration of the State govern- 
ment, could be defeated in New York in 1884?" 

Again in October The World, conceding that Mr. Tilden 
was still master of the nomination, but contemplating the 
possibility of his withdrawal, spoke of him as a maker of 
Presidents: 

Mr. Tilden might name George Hoadly. But will not his 
shrewdness shrink from the needless risk of the October election 
in Ohio? 

Mr. Tilden may make choice of Grover Cleveland, having an 
eye to the vital importance of strength in New York. 

In this event is it not probable that the next Democratic 
Presidential ticket may be graced by the names of the two 
greatest Governors in the United States — greatest in brains, in 
character, in the magnificence of their victories — Grover 
Cleveland, of New York, and George Hoadly, of Ohio? 

Cleveland and Hoadly was, in fact. The World^s '^ slate." 
As to the issues of the campaign, they were clearly indi- 
cated after the 1883 election. The Treasxu-y surplus had 
become so great as to threaten the Republican party 
with the necessity of revising the tariff as a revenue 
measure. In January, 1884, the New York Sun, on 
behalf of the Randall or high-tariff Democracy, suggested 
the removal of internal-revenue taxation as a Democratic 
policy. The World was quick to brand this proposal 
under the heading of ''No Free Whisky." To this it 
added the ringing popular cry: ''Turn the rascals out!" 
It urged the Democratic House of Representatives, which 
was making an excellent record for economy and efficiency, 
to provide campaign material by exposing corruption: 



24 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

It has been admitted by the ex-secretary of the Republican 
National Committee that in the election of 1880 the State of 
Indiana was carried for the Republicans by bribery and cor- 
ruption. Investigate! 

It has been admitted by the Republicans that a corruption 
fund of $400,000 was raised in New York City, which was 
carried to Indiana and used to ^'induce men to change their 
opinions and their votes." Investigate! 

It has been charged that the present United States Minister 
to France, Levi P. Morton, bought his appointment with the 
share he contributed to that fund and his efforts in securing 
other subscriptions. Investigate! 

It has been charged that two prominent speculators interested 
in suits before the Supreme Court of the United States involving 
millions of dollars paid $100,000 toward Garfield's election 
expenses in consideration of his pledge to make appointments 
to that court acceptable to them, and that a judge friendly to 
them (Stanley Matthews) was actually appointed in conformity 
with the bargain. Investigate! 

As early as April 7th The World foresaw that 'Hhe 
chances are that the candidate of the Republican party 
will be James G. Blaine." It felt for his claims a cer- 
tain sympathy ^'Because he is manifestly the choice of the 
great bulk of his party and has the Federal patronage and 
the machines against him. Because he was the choice 
of the majority of Republicans in 1876 and 1880, and 
on each occasion was cheated out of the nomination by 
machine methods.'' 

When the Republican national convention met Mr. 
Blaine proved to be the leader in popular favor. Manipu- 
lation could no longer balk his candidacy, and he was 
without great difficulty nominated June 6th on the fourth 
ballot. The World was under no illusions as to his 
strength: 

Before the canvass is fully opened it will be clear to the 
plainest understanding that James G. Blaine represents not only 



GROVER CLEVELAND 25 

the machine of the RepubUcan party, but the demorahzing and 
corruptive power of Wall Street, the money interests, the 
monopolies, corporations, and all protected, privileged, special 
classes. All that is reprehensible and base in our demoralized 
political system will naturally rally to his support. 

Will he be defeated? 

That is clearly in the hands of Democrats. 

If the Democratic candidate for the Presidency should be 
precisely what Mr. Blaine is not — a man of the highest judicial 
mind, the most elevated character and purposes — he would 
doubtless attract the support of many self-respecting indepen- 
dent Republicans, carry New York and other doubtful States 
and be elected. 

Of the fighting issues The World had said: 

The Republican platform starts with a truism which no 
person will attempt to gainsay: 

''The Republicans of the United States, in national conven- 
tion assembled, renew their allegiance to the principles upon 
which they have triumphed in six successive Presidential 
elections." 

Among those principles are the coercion of a number of the 
States at the point of the Federal bayonet. 

The arbitrary use of the enormous Federal patronage de- 
signedly increased by Republican administrations as a means of 
perpetuating the powder of the party. 

The corrupt appHance of money wrung from public officers 
by compulsory assessments, or collected from dishonest Govern- 
ment contractors, favored corporations, and pampered national 
banks. 

The theft of the Presidency by aid of fraud and forgery when 
beaten by the people. 

The unblushing purchase of elections with an enormous 
corruption fund raised by the sale of Supreme Court judge- 
ships. Cabinet offices and diplomatic appointments. 

Colonization of voters, false counting and other offenses 
against the purity of the ballot-box. 

These are the ''principles" upon which the Republican party 



26 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

has "triumphed," despite the desire of the people to drive it 
from the Government, and these are the "principles'' on some 
of which it founds the desperate hope of a continuance of power. 

Many eminent Republicans repudiated the nomination 
of Mr. Blaine because his record would not bear scrutiny. 
Carl Schurz, Benjamin H. Bristow, George William 
Curtis, Charles W. Eliot, and Franklin MacVeagh led into 
the ranks of those political independents whom it was the 
fashion to call ^'Mugwumps'' a group of the best men of 
the party. Some of these had followed Greeley in 1872; 
some were for the first time breaking away from party 
trammels. Among these latter the country looked with 
interest for the name of a young New York assemblyman 
who had hotly opposed Blaine in the convention. They 
looked in vain. Theodore Roosevelt decided to accept 
Blaine, but not without careful balancing of opposing 
considerations. It was the political crisis of his life; at 
the early age of twenty-five he turned to the machine 
men of his party, with whom for almost thirty years he 
was generally to stand in agreement. 

Attention turned to the Democratic convention. Mr. 
Tilden's expected refusal to accept a nomination came 
in a letter to Daniel Manning, chairman of the New York 
State Democratic Committee. The way was clear for 
Cleveland. The World on June 17th again presented the 
claims of the man of ^^ Manifest Destiny": 

The name of Grover Cleveland has suggested itself naturally 
to Democrats as presenting pre-eminent availability. As 
Governor of the State Mr. Cleveland has displayed a straight- 
forward, unpretending desire to do his duty, without regard 
to political consequences and without affectation of demagogism. 
. . . When a blathering ward politician objects to Governor 
Cleveland because he is more a "Reformer" than a "Democrat" 
he furnishes the best argument in favor of his nomination and 
election. 



GROVER CLEVELAND 27 

And again on the following day: ''Grover Cleveland is 
available, not assailable." On July 3d, just before the 
Democratic national convention was to meet, an article 
appeared telling '^Why The World Likes Cleveland. '^ It 
ran as follows: 

He is a poor man. 

He came from plain, common people. 

He has no so-called aristocratic lineage or illustrious ancestry, 
but owes everything he is to his own efforts and his own char- 
acter. . . . 

He is a poor politician because an absolutely honest, con- 
scientious reformer. 

He has no lifelong political record to defend or explain. . . . 

He does not believe that even a moderate protective tariff 
is unconstitutional and "legalized communism." Quite the 
contrary. 

He does not speculate in stocks, does not build railroads, did 
never sit with Blaine as an associate in the same directory. 
Quite the contrary. 

He is not popular with the local "machines" and "politi- 
cians" whose special interests he has disregarded whenever 
the public welfare demanded it. 

He is certain of a larger Independent and disaffected Repub- 
lican vote than any other Democrat yet born. 

He is more apt to carry New York, Connecticut and New 
Jersey than any other Democrat who can be named. 

He is certain to make a good President — not brilliant and 
"magnetic," but repulsive to the rascals who are preying upon 
the Government and who must be driven out of Washington. 

He is certain to make a very bad President — for all the 
jobbers and corruptionists and on-the-make partisans. 

There was need of such advocacy; Tammany, under 
command of John Kelly, opposed Cleveland, and the 
opposition came from the greatest Democratic stronghold 
of the country. The Hall could not deliver the delegates 
of the state under the unit rule; Greater New York was 
yet unmade; Brooklyn commonly acted with the rural 



28 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Democrats against Tammany; but Tammany was a 
power. '' Personal Comfort" Grady (the late Thomas 
F. Grady, whom Mr. Cleveland's request to John Kelly 
had kept out of the New York Legislature of 1884) made 
a speech against Cleveland on the floor of the conven- 
tion. It was then that Gen. E. S. Bragg, of Wisconsin 
and of the ^^Iron Brigade," made his famous retort: ^^We 
love him most for the enemies he has made." 

The Cleveland forces were heartened by The WorWs 
advocacy and by assurance from Daniel Manning and 
others of Cleveland's strength in New York, and on 
July 10th he was nominated upon the second ballot, with 
Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana, his leading convention 
opponent, as his running-mate. 

The Anti-Monopoly party convention, on May 14th, 
and that of the National party, legatee of the Green- 
backers, on May 28th, nominated Benjamin F. Butler 
for President. On June 30th, after Blaine's nomination, 
The Surij foreseeing the success of Cleveland at Chicago, 
had announced that it had a candidate, ^^ which his name 
it is Butler," who could beat Blaine. Really Butler's 
candidacy was in Blaine's favor, as calculated to draw 
its support largely from the Democratic ranks. 

The Sun's defection was serious. It was a very able 
paper, nominally Democratic, and had warmly supported 
Mr. Cleveland in 1882. The Sun's powerful opposition, 
continued throughout the campaign, made The World the 
mainstay of the Cleveland forces in the pivotal state. 

But if Democracy had an enemy in Butler, Republican- 
ism with Blaine was pursued by a Nemesis of its own. The 
Republican platform of New York in 1883 had promised 
to submit to the people a prohibitory amendment to the 
state constitution. The promise was broken in the ses- 
sion of 1884, Mr. Roosevelt having introduced as a sop a 
high-license bill that failed to pass. This evasion caused 
much ill-feeling among New York Prohibitionists allied 



GROVER CLEVELAND 29 

with the Republicans, and there was every prospect that 
the Prohibition candidate, John P. St. John, would get a 
considerable vote. To make matters worse for Blaine, his 
own state on September 8th voted upon constitutional 
prohibition. Maine had had statutory prohibition since 
1854, but the friends of the policy wanted it pegged down 
in the constitution, where it could not be repealed by 
act of legislature. Mr. Blaine dodged a vote in his home 
city, and these extracts from The World show how quickly 
his opponents seized upon the fact: 

The Republican party of Maine yesterday indorsed by a 
large majority the proposed amendment to the Constitution 
which forever prohibits within the State the manufacture or sale 
of intoxicating liquors — cider excepted. This measure was 
submitted by a Republican legislature. It was indorsed by 
the Republican party, and in consideration of this Neal Dow, 
the great Prohibition apostle, advised his followers to abandon 
the Prohibition ticket and help Mr. Blaine by electing his 
State ticket. — September 9, 

(Blaine's) pretense, made in his jubilee speech after the close 
of the polls, that the Prohibition question should be kept out 
of politics, and that for that reason he '^ decided not to vote at 
all on the question," is a stupid and shallow fraud. Mr. 
Blaine was voting as a citizen of Maine, in a State election, on 
State issues. — September 10. 

As for Butler, ^^to believe that he could secure enough 
votes to insure Blaine's election would be to suppose that 
the working-men of the country are destitute of brains 
or that the Democratic party is destitute of honesty.'' 
In the result St. John received in New York State 24,999 
votes and in the nation 151,809; Butler in New York 
16,955 and in the entire country 133,825. In inflicting 
damage upon the two great parties they were nearly 
balanced. 



30 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

A grave issue in the Blaine campaign arose out of the 
usual methods of corruption. On August 5th The World 
said: 

The fact that the "Stand and Deliver" Committee of the 
Blaine managers is applying to Government employees at their 
residences for campaign funds instead of at their offices proves 
beyond dispute that the political blackmailers are sensible 
of the illegality of their action. 

Larger sums were contributed by financiers from in- 
terested motives. ^^ There is no safety for business or 
capital/' said The Worlds "if the Bepublican party 
method of buying elections with money contributed by 
monopolies is allowed to continue until the wrath of the 
people rises irresistibly against it." 

But the strongest issue with the people was that which 
had driven so many Independents to revolt — the financial 
recklessness of Mr. Blaine in former years. He had been 
cartooned by Puck as "The Tattooed Man'' of the 
Republican Great Moral Show — tattooed with evidence of 
the carelessness of his conduct while Representative and 
Speaker — and Republican campaign glee clubs had been 
driven to the expedient of singing "The Tattooed Man 
Our President Shall Be." The World unearthed the 
Blaine- Warren Fisher correspondence. Unpleasant read- 
ing about a candidate for President of the United States 
was this letter from Fisher to Blaine, written in April, 1872 : 

I have loaned you at various times, when you were comparatively 
poor, very large sums of money, and never have you paid me one 
dollar from your own pocket, either principal or interest. I have paid 
sundry amounts to others to whom you were indebted, and these debts 
you have allowed to stand unpaid like the notes which I hold. I 
have placed you in positions whereby you have received very large 
sums of money without one dollar of expense to you, and you ought 
not to forget the act on my part. Of all the parties connected with 
the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad no one has been so fortunate 
as yourself in obtaining money out of it. 



GROVER CLEVELAND 31 

A pitiable chapter in American history is the Blaine 
campaign. Not without sympathy for a man who pos- 
sessed so many admirable qualities and who was still 
to render valuable public service can one read to-day the 
lashing which The World gave Mr. Blaine: 

But now comes another batch of telltale letters. In them 
Blaine, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the plumed 
knight, crawls a beggar at the feet of contractors and railroad 
jobbers. He solicits money from Fisher and Josiah Caldwell. 
''If you leave this burden on me it will crush me,'' he cries. 
He draws unauthorized drafts on Fisher. "As a wholly inno- 
cent third party, doing my best to act as a sincere and steadfast 
friend to both of you," he says, ''I ought not to be left exposed 
to financial ruin and personal humiliation." 

"I am in a very painful and embarrassed situation, growing 
out of my connection with the Fort Smith enterprise," he writes 
to Fisher; and he prays him for $36,000 land bonds and $9,000 
first mortgage "which," he says, he "needs and must have." 
He continues to dun these railroad speculators for favors, a 
persistent beggar, until Mr. Fisher is compelled to write to 
him and tell him practically that he is a dead-beat and can 
have no more. 

It may be wondered how any man of whom such words 
could be written came so near being elected President. 
Mr. Blaine had long been the idol of the Republican in 
the ranks. He made a magnificent personal canvass. 
He was magnetic. He was able. He was aided by the 
prestige and power of a party which had behind it six 
Presidential victories in succession; by a large and com- 
pact body of office-holders; by the use of money when 
money could be used far more effectively than now; 
by the fact that many Northern men still believed that 
the country was menaced by '^Confederate Brigadiers." 
It was true, as cynical Republicans said, that ''there was 
one more President in the 'bloody shirt.'" 



32 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

For, barring accident, Blaine was elected as the cam- 
paign closed. 

That accident came on October 29th, when a number of 
clergymen waited upon Mr. Blaine in New York to assure 
him that the moral sentiment of the city was not shocked 
by the disclosures concerning him. The Rev. Dr. Tiffany 
was to have delivered a prepared address. Some of the 
ministers objected to being represented by Dr. Tiffany, 
and after a silly wrangle it was suggested that the oldest 
man present should do the talking. This was Dr. 
Burchard, of the Murray Hill Presbyterian Church, he 
who immortalized himself in American politics by saying, 
''We are Republicans, and don't propose to leave our 
party and identify ourselves with the party whose ante- 
cedents have been Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion." 

It is said that Mr. Blaine, quick to catch a political 
point, started at these words and thought of replying 
upon the spur of the moment, but quickly concluded that 
it was wiser to let them pass, hoping that they would do 
little harm so late in the campaign. The World next 
morning caused him to regret his decision by publishing 
the remark with caustic comment. ''How do the Demo- 
crats," it asked, "and especially those of Irish birth and 
descent who are said to be willing to support Mr. Blaine, 
relish this picture of the party to which they have adhered 
for years?" The thrust was effective, for especial efforts 
had been directed to organizing Irish-American clubs 
for Blaine. It was claimed in his behalf that if elected he 
would gratify the Celtic hatred of Albion by "twisting 
the lion's tail," and the bait had been swallowed. Now 
the work was all but undone. 

Powerful in its crude vigor was a cartoon, entitled 
"Belshazzar's Feast," which The World printed in the 
height of the Burchard excitement. It portrayed the 
Republican chiefs in the robes of ancient revelers at the 
banquet of privilege with Blaine himself in close confer- 



GROVER CLEVELAND 33 

ence with Jay Gould, Commodore Vanderbilt and others. 
The newspaper cartoon was then an innovation in New 
York, and the " feast '^ caused a well-remembered sen- 
sation. 

Cleveland won in New York State, which was decisive, 
by but 1,047 votes. The defection of Roscoe Conkling^s 
Stalwart friends in Oneida County and elsewhere was held 
responsible for the result. A more cynical view was 
turned regretfully upon the pocket borough of Supervisor 
John Y. McKane in Gravesend, now a part of New York 
City, where some hundreds of votes were notoriously for 
sale. It was a common remark in Republican circles, 
**if we had known how close it was going to be we could 
have bought the McKane vote and won hands down.'' 
For some days the claim was made that Blaine was 
elected. The Democratic girls in Vassar College who 
paid their bets by giving a feast to the Republican girls 
upon the election figures of the Tribune were not the 
only ones of their party faith deceived. 

Some Democrats, alarmed by the persistency of Re- 
publican newspapers in claiming a victory, expressed fears 
that the Republicans would count in Blaine as they had 
counted out Tilden. The World reminded such pessimists 
that: 

General Grant is not at the head of the Government, with a 
General Augur in command of United States bayonets in the 
States to be stolen, and a Don Cameron as Secretary of War. 
Wells, Packard and Kellogg are not in control of an infamous 
Returning Board of thieves and forgers in New York, Indiana, 
or any of the disputed States. Ferry, of Michigan, is not 
President of the Senate. 

For The World the election of Cleveland was more than 
an ordinary political victory. The young venture drew 
the attention of the country. Its swift leap into promi- 
nence and power gratified the public taste for the mar- 



34 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

velous and the unexpected. Its contemporaries of the 
press, trained in the school of partisan politics, assumed 
that President Cleveland would look to The World as his 
personal organ; most of them considered the position 
desirable. 

Such relationship to the new administration was 
promptly disclaimed. "The World," it said, the day after 
election, "seeks no favors, patronage or office, and asks 
but one thing of President Cleveland. That is to redeem 
the promises he made, and which The World made on his 
behalf, that he would lead the nation away from corrup- 
tion and to a restored, a reformed, a regenerated real 
republic." 

But the theory of organship would not so easily be 
refuted. A month after election the Boston Traveler, 
familiar with the relations between newspaper - offices 
and custom-houses, said, "If Governor Cleveland has 
an official organ, one authorized to speak for him and 
to outline his policy, that organ is the New York 
WorW 

The World replied that it felt complimented by the 
credit given it for effecting a needed change in the govern- 
ment. But it did not believe in one-man power or one- 
man newspaper organs. "The World," it said, "is chained 
to no conqueror^s chariot. It will gladly and zealously 
support all that is good in President Cleveland's adminis- 
tration. But it would oppose anything that should be 
clearly wrong or mistaken. We regard the editorship of 
The World as a great public trust, as Mr. Cleveland re- 
gards the Presidency." 

What powerfully appealed to Mr. Pulitzer's imagina- 
tion, what he wished to impress upon the country, was the 
romance of Mr. Cleveland's swift rise as a result of direct 
appeal to the people and trust in them. Thus after the 
induction into office of the new President in the following 
March he wrote: 



GROVER CLEVELAND 35 

Grover Cleveland, who is now President of the United States, 
was four years ago almost unknown outside the city of Buffalo. 
He had not yet been elected Mayor of that city. He had never 
figured in the nation's politics; his reputation, whatever it 
may have been, was local, and his career uneventful. 

He is now the Chief Magistrate of fifty-five millions of people, 
by their own choice, and it is certain that they selected him 
without reference to his ambition. 

The marvelous rise from obscurity to pre-eminence of such a 
man has all the interest of a romance. It would be hard to 
find a parallel to it in history. Four years is a short time in 
which to make such a prodigious passage, and the romance has 
its significance, for it shows that, after all, ours is a goverrunent 
of the people and for the people, and the fitness and faithfulness 
that shall administer the Government aright ought to be one 
of the proudest results of a nation like ours. 

Nearly nineteen years later, writing at Princeton to 
The World for publication in its twentieth anniversary 
number, Mr. Cleveland thus testified to its ^^ services to 
Democracy" in the campaign of 1884: 

I never can lose the vividness of my recollection of the conditions 
and incidents attending the Presidential campaign of 1884: how 
thoroughly Republicanism was intrenched; how briUiantly it was led; 
how arrogant it was; and how confidently it encom-aged and aided a 
contingent of deserters from the Democratic ranks. And I recall 
not less vividly how brilliantly and sturdily The World then fought for 
Democracy; and in this the first of its great party fights under present 
proprietorship it was here, there, and everywhere in the field, showering 
deadly blows upon the enemy. It was steadfast in zeal and untiring 
in effort until the battle was won; and it was won against such odds 
and by so slight a margin as to reasonably lead to the behef that 
no contributing aid could have been safely spared. At any rate, the contest 
was so close it may be said without reservation that if it had lacked the 
forceful and potent advocacy of Democratic principles at that time by 
the New York *' World'' the result might have been reversed. 

Upon the receipt in Hamburg of copies of The World 
containing this tribute Mr. Pulitzer cabled on May 29th, 
for publication the following morning: 



36 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Mr. Cleveland has spoken of The World's service to the 
Democratic party, and particularly of its decisive "advocacy 
of Democratic principles, '^ upon an occasion critical indeed 
to him and to the Democracy. Many other distinguished 
gentlemen have generously, yet mistakenly praised The 
World's services to the Democratic party. 

I say mistakenly because, whatever benefit Mr. Cleveland 
and the Democratic party received. The World never for one 
moment during the last twenty years considered itself a party 
paper. It promised to support truly Democratic principles, 
truly Democratic ideas, and it has done so, and will do so, with 
entire independence of bosses, machines, candidates and plat- 
forms, following only the dictates of its conscience. 

Five years later, upon The WorMs twenty-fifth birth- 
day, May 10, 1908, the idea finds repetition: 

What is truly Democratic? 

Not party, but country. Not party, but humanity. Not 
party, but liberty. Not party, but equality. Not party, but 
equal opportunity. Not party, but equal justice. 



IV 

LIBERTY 

1885-1886 

The Statue of Liberty, a New Colossus of Rhodes — How "The WorW^ 
Raised the Pedestal — Hill and the Mugwumps — Civil-Service Reformers 
Dissatisfied with Cleveland — The Hungry Horde of Office-Seekers — Tariff 
Reform Delayed by a Divided Congress — Jake Sharp and the Boodle 
Aldermen — The Labor Troubles of 1886 — Henry George's Candidacy for 
Mayor — Theodore Roosevelt's First Defeat. 

In the last years of his hf e Joseph Pulitzer built a steam- 
yacht in the hope of finding upon a craft especially designed 
for him the quiet essential to his shattered health. He 
named it Liberty. 

The name expressed what had been the chief concern 
of his life. It also recalled one of the most famous of The 
World^s early exploits. 

In the early seventies Edouard Laboulaye, of Paris, 
proposed that a gigantic statue of Liberty Enlightening the 
World be presented by the people of France to the people 
of America, to "declare by an imperishable memorial the 
friendship that the blood spilled by our fathers sealed 
between the two nations.'^ The French people eagerly 
took up the plan. M. Auguste Bartholdi was commis- 
sioned to model the statue. Our government set aside 
space for it upon Bedloe's Island, and in 1877 a committee 
was formed to raise funds for the base. Five years later, 
at a mass-meeting called by this committee, November 
28, 1882, William M. Evarts said of the statue: 



38 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

It is so vast and stupendous a work that without comparing it to 
soniQ well-known object the mind is scarcely able to conceive of it. 
The statue itself, from its base to the top of the torch, is 145 feet 
high [151 feet 1 inch as erected; with pedestal, 305 feet 6 inches]. It 
is but 135 feet from the water-level to the highest point in the span 
of the Brooklyn Bridge, so that this statue, if placed on the water-level, 
would overtop the bridge ten feet. It is 40 feet square at the base. 
The great statue known as the seventh wonder of the world, the 
Colossus of Rhodes, was erected to show the gratitude of the people of 
Rhodes for the aid given them by a friendly power in their struggles 
for liberty. That work cost the poor, feeble Rhodians between 
$400,000 and $500,000— twice as much as the powerful and wealthy 
American people are called on to provide for the proper erection of the 
gift of the French nation. 

Neither Mr. Evarts's eloquence nor the labors of the 
committee gave Liberty a place to set her foot; in April, 
1883, when the big figure was almost ready to ship from 
France and work upon the base was begun, there was not 
nearly enough money to complete it. This was the situa- 
tion when Mr. Pulitzer arrived in New York. 

The Liberty statue appealed to him with singular force. 
He had not forgotten how, a poor boy entering Boston 
harbor as an immigrant, he had looked eagerly for the 
Land of Promise to rise upon the horizon. He could 
imagine how immigrant boys of future time would look 
up at the great figure towering over New York Bay, 
embodying an idea that all could grasp. He felt not 
sorrow only, but shame that his adopted country did not 
respond to its opportunity. 

Throughout the first year The World made frequent 
attempts to aid the pedestal fund, but its grasp was not 
then firm enough to undertake so great a task as raising 
the money. In 1884 it devoted all its energy to the elec- 
tion of a Democratic President. But in the spring of 
1885 no obstacle prevented its return to the project, and 
upon the 15th of March The World engaged to raise 
through its readers the $100,000 needed. It appealed 



LIBERTY 39 

as a '^people's paper '^ to the people of the United States, 
reminding them that ''The $250,000 that the making of 
the statue cost was paid in by masses of the French 
people — by the working-men, the tradesmen, the 
shop-girls, the artisans — by all, irrespective of class 
or condition. Let us not wait for the millionaires 
to give this money,'' it urged. ''It is not a gift 
from the millionaires of France to the millionaires of 
America." 

The money came slowly for a time; considerably less 
than one dollar each was the average contribution. But 
by May 15th enough was in hand so that work was re- 
sumed by the committee; in four months the fund was 
sufficient, and by April 23, 1886, the pedestal stood com- 
plete. The Isere sailed from France June 18th with the 
statue, cast in sections, and upon her arrival in New York 
was thus welcomed by The World: 

Surely peace has wrought no nobler victory in our generation 
than this. And if to-day the pageant of reception is made 
imposing by the war-vessels of two governments they are 
this time only giving obedient and kindly service to the people 
who have learned to make governments and have outstripped 
them in fraternal purpose. And this purpose, if carried out 
in man's intercourse with Liberty and Light, as it has been 
carried out in this emblematic labor, will yet make war-vessels 
imnecessary. 

There will be no answering salute from those peaceful bastions 
where Liberty is to plant her feet. There are no cannon on 
the parapets that the people have reared. But the mute 
and mighty Goddess for ages, let us hope, will tell her eloquent 
mission of sentiment there. 

The inauguration ceremonies, after the statue was 
set up, took place in October, 1886, attended by the 
President and other American high officials, and by a 
distinguished delegation from France. 



40 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Upon bronze tablets at the sides of the central arch 
of the pedestal facing the sea are two inscriptions: 

A GIFT FROM THE PEOPLE OF THE REPUBLIC OF FRANCE 
TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES 

and 

THIS PEDESTAL WAS BUILT BY VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS 
FROM THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

Another reminder of the raising of Liberty's pedestal 
faces the reader of The World each morning. In the head- 
ing of the paper, slightly changed from that first adopted 
by Mr. Pulitzer in May, 1883, a vignette sketch of 
Liberty stands between twin globes representing the 
Western and Eastern hemispheres. 

If the task of the spring was the setting up of the 
Statue of Liberty, autumn brought fresh labors to broaden 
liberty in political life. 

Political interest in New York in the off-year 1885 
centered in the contest for Governor. David B. Hill, of 
Elmira, elected in 1882 lieutenant-governor for a three- 
year term, had succeeded Cleveland upon his promotion 
to the Presidency, and he was nominated by the Demo- 
crats for the full term on September 24th. In view of 
later events it may seem odd that The World should have 
hailed his nomination as that of a man ^4n State politics 
a disciple of President Cleveland." But it was true, as 
the article continued, that Hill was ^ drained under Mr. 
Cleveland as hisiLieutenant for two years, while the latter 
was Governor," and that he had '^carried out Mr. Cleve- 
land's policy while acting as his successor." 
War was declared upon Hill by the Mugwumps on the 
ground that he was not a civil-service reformer; they 
were right enough, as the event proved. The World 



LIBERTY 41 

begged the President to come to his lieutenant's assistance. 
It reminded him that he had written ^^ columns in letters 
to George William Curtis, Dorman B. Eaton and other 
Mugwumps," and asked him to send a ^ better of twenty- 
positive lines" to Mr. Hill expressing sympathy with him 
in the abuse he was receiving. Such a letter would be 
worth ^^ twenty thousand votes to Mr. Hill and the party 
that elected Mr. Cleveland." 

Mr. Cleveland heightened the Mugwump wrath by 
writing a letter. It was a very practical letter. It was 
written to a Democratic friend and inclosed the President's 
check for one thousand dollars to aid in Hill's election. 
This was neither the political assessment of a helpless 
office-holder nor a secret contribution of a large sum by a 
buyer of legislative privilege; and it was of great in- 
direct service to Mr. Hill. He was perhaps more served 
by the Republicans injecting the bloody-shirt issue into 
the campaign, a piece of folly less excusable since the 
election of a Democratic President had shown that the 
nation could survive a change of parties. 

The World warmly supported Mr. Hill. It also took 
the ground, familiar since to its readers, that ^4n local 
elections party lines should be set aside where Republican 
Judges had made an especially honorable record and 
while on the bench had shown no party feeling." And 
it renewed the bitter sarcasm it had poured out upon those 
who resorted to sectionalism as an argument when others 
failed them in their weakness. 

The victory was complete all along the line. Judge 
Sedgwick, a Republican supported by The Worlds was 
elected by Democratic votes. Governor Hill was chosen 
Governor by a majority of 11,134 — small, but many times 
more than that of Mr. Cleveland in New York the pre- 
vious year. The election was a ^^ rebuke of two things — 
the bloody shirt and the bloodless Mugwump." 

Pleased as The World was at its success in an off-year 



42 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

in New York, its main interest was the course of the 
Democratic administration then beginning in Washing- 
ton and the promise it held out of economic reform. In 
the defense of the new administration The World had 
occasion with a frequency which is now surprising to meet 
the charge that Democracy meant disunion. ^* Perhaps/^ 
it said upon one of these occasions, ^'if Mr. [Jefferson] 
Davis, instead of leading the life of a private citizen, had 
lent his name, which beyond doubt has a certain influence, 
to a firm of Wall Street brokers, had made himself friendly 
with the Goulds, Vanderbilts and Fields, of the moneyed 
classes, and had voted the Republican ticket, he would 
have been courted by the politicians who now hold him 
up as a scarecrow and lash themselves into fury whenever 
his name is mentioned.'^ A month later we find it re- 
buking a man of such ability and position that he had little 
excuse for playing the demagogue: 

Mr. Evarts asserts that the success of the Democracy "brings 
us once more to the position of affairs and complexion of 
sections as we found them in 1860." 

Is this true? Is this honest? Is it worthy of a lawyer of 
reputation? Or is it a blatant, foolish political lie such as 
should be uttered only by a low, dishonest political demagogue? 
We leave the American people to judge. 

A life unusually prolonged brought Mr. Evarts to a 
time when he must have blushed to recall such utterances. 
In 1885 they were of every-day occurrence. 

Discussion of the civil-service-reform situation was 
more difficult; in fact, it was the chief strategic difficulty 
confronting the new President. 

There was a tendency among Mugwumps to go back 
to the Republican party, now that it had received its re- 
buke; and this tendency was strengthened by the impa- 
tience of the leaders with what they considered Mr. 
Cleveland's slowness in advancing their reform. A 



LIBERTY 43 

practical difficulty beset this undertaking in the horde 
of hungry Democrats, famished by twenty-four years of 
banishment from Washington, who made a wild lunge 
for the offices, waylaid the President day and night, and 
would not be denied. If some of these men were not 
pacified there was danger of political reaction. As The 
World said: 

President Cleveland's Administration is between two fires. 
Some Democrats blame him for not turning Republicans out 
of office more rapidly and generally. The Independents fret 
and worry because he happens to have appointed a few men 
to office who are hard workers in the party and labored to make 
his election possible. 

Between these contending groups The Worlds far more 
interested in the reform of the tariff and the checking of 
corruption than in other issues, was for a time not with- 
out sympathy for the partisan Democratic attitude. It 
found its preference consistent with belief in the merit 
system. ^'For the best interests of good government 
it insisted that '^before the bars are put up against re- 
movals from office there should be something like equality 
of both political parties in the public service," especially 
as ^Hhe Republicans who are in were put there through 
political favor, without regard to their qualifications or 
merits, while a great portion of persons now appointed 
are subjected to a strict competitive Civil-Service exami- 
nation.'' Twenty-eight years later President Wilson was 
to take a somewhat similar attitude with regard to 
fourth-class Postmasters whom a late order of President 
Taft had placed in the classified service, and to order 
their examination as a test of fitness to retain office. 

There was treachery in the departments; there were 
employees who looked to party and not to country as 
their employer. It was natural enough, considering the 
reasons for their employment and the conditions of their 



44 THE STORY OP A PAGE 

service. Horatio Sejonour said that ^'no prudent busi- 
ness man would employ a bookkeeper who was working 
against his interests and praying that he should fail/' 
Mr. Cleveland had something like this in mind when he 
declared that ^'offensive partisans'' must quit public 
service. Yet so great was the dissatisfaction among 
Democratic party workers that The World was no doubt 
right in saying after the 1885 election that ''if Mr. 
Cleveland had been a candidate this year instead of 
Governor Hill the State would have defeated him most 
overwhelmingly as a rebuke to his Mugwumpism." 

But the spectacle of the chief elected servant of the 
people compelled to devote his time to sifting the claims 
of petty politicians for patronage was not to be patiently 
endured. Casting about for a remedy, The World pro- 
posed "a straight path through the Constitution to Civil- 
Service Reform." Let Congress, was its idea, by law 
''cut off from the President all the inferior appointments, 
vesting them in different heads of departments." So 
far as the Independents were concerned it set its face 
against their recognition upon claims of patronage: 

The Independents frankly avowed their position. They 
were Republicans, but not unscrupulous and dishonest Re- 
publicans. They declared for the representative Democratic 
candidate, not because they intended to join the Democrats 
or hoped to personally profit by their success, but because 
they preferred country to party. They chose to elect an 
honest partisan opponent rather than a dishonest partisan 
associate. They would rather see the Presidential office 
Democratic than Disgraced. 

Under these circumstances we regard it as unjust to the 
Independents and harmful to the principles they uphold to 
agitate the question whether they are to receive recognition 
or reward in patronage from the Democratic Administration. 
Unjust to them, because it implies self-interest as the motive 
^ of their action. Harmful to the principles they represent, 



LIBERTY 45 

because it imparts to what we believe was unselfish patriotism 
the appearance of prompt poHtical payment. 

But by 1887 The World became convinced that the 
attempt to secm-e at once proportional representation of 
the parties in public employment was impracticable, and 
that it was safer to leave to time the redress of remaining 
inequalities. It was to this change of view that President 
Cleveland referred in a letter written August 17, 1887, 
to Silas W. Burt and recently unearthed for publication, 
in which he asks: ^^Did you see how quickly The World 
and some of the rest of the Democratic spoils papers . . . 
became champions of civil-service reform under the in- 
spiration of Mr. [George William] Curtis's speech?" The 
World had never been a spoils paper; it had not criticized 
the merit system; it had not sought to delay its introduc- 
tion save to the extent indicated; and it needed no speech 
of Mr. Curtis or any one else to shape its course. 

Except for this temporary divergence of opinion, which 
did not touch the essential merit of reform, The WorWs 
support of Mr. Cleveland's policies in his first term was 
uniform. When the first calendar year closed upon a 
Democratic administration in Washington it asked: 

Has not the Government grown stronger in the proof that 
the people can elect and inaugurate a President of their own 
choice? Has not the declining bitterness of sectionalism drawn 
closer those fraternal bonds which bind State to State and make 
the Union more perfect than ever? Do not the people feel safer 
now against the encroachments of monopolies than they did a 
year ago? 

The ^^horizontal-reduction" tariff bill of William R. 
Morrison, of Illinois, introduced in 1884, was the chief 
proposal for reducing the surplus before the country the 
following year. The new Congress assembled in De- 
cember, 1885; the Sem^-te was still Republican, blocking 



46 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

action; the House was strongly Democratic, but there was 
discord within the party. 

This element of delay and danger was furnished by the 
Randall assistant Republican group, with its theory that, 
to stave off action on the tariff, internal-revenue taxes 
should be swept away. The World had no patience with 
this plan. The country was collecting nearly one hun- 
dred million dollars on distilled spirits and fermented 
liquors. The people did not '^ desire to see this tax 
removed and the tariff increased so as to add to the cost 
of articles of necessary consumption in the poorest man's 
family," especially when the object of the manoeuver was 
to "build up to yet grander proportions the profits of 
monopolies." 

To dispose temporarily of the surplus Congress passed 
a compromise resolution providing that the idle money 
in the Treasury, above all liabilities of the government, 
above $100,000,000 reserve for the redemption of the 
legal tenders, and above $20,000,000 to be held as an 
emergency reserve, should be used to pay bonds. This 
the President killed in August, 1886, by a pocket veto. 
The relief of war taxation was the first necessity. 

The World heartily indorsed the veto. It was prompt 
to demand of Attorney-General Garland, of Mr. Cleve- 
land's otherwise strong Cabinet, that he should resign 
when it became known that he was interested in the stock 
of the Pan-Electric Telephone Company, and that the 
contest on the Bell Telephone patents must come before 
the Department of Justice for consideration. It sup- 
ported the Reagan interstate-commerce bill, a precursor 
of the present act. The vote of 158 to 75, which 
this measure received in the House, showed that "with 
a change of administration will come a change of policy 
toward the abuses and despotism of large corporations, 
and that in future the interests of monopolies will not be 
allowed to override the interests of the people." 



LIBERTY 47 

A running fight that began early in 1885 and lasted 
until the law's delay removed the danger of punishment 
for most of the thieves was waged by The World in 1886-87 
upon the '^boodle'' aldermen who sold Jake Sharp, a 
notorious promoter, a franchise for the Broadway surface 
railway. 

How the rails came to be laid in this important street 
after the merchants opposed to the line had obtained an 
injunction may be read in The WoMs editorial article 
^'Scoundrelism and Vandalism/' in which on May 24, 
1885, it scored Justices Brady and Daniels of the Supreme 
Court for action practically removing the injunction. 
Sharp was waiting for the decision, and within a few 
hours 'Hhe only grand thoroughfare of the city,'' as it was 
oddly described, was being torn up by pick and shovel. 
Merchants on Broadway now regard the street-railway 
as a friend. There is no need to soften condemnation of 
the means by which it was legalized or the stock-jobbery 
which has been loaded upon the line. 

The way for the criminal prosecution of the boodle 
aldermen was cleared in a manner suggesting opera 
bouffe. Alderman Jaehne, one of the boodle-takers, com- 
bined the occupation of a ^^ fence" for stolen goods with 
the more lucrative one of selling aldermanic franchises. 
Caught in the less objectionable of these pursuits by a 
courageous woman whose silverware had taken wing, 
Jaehne' s craven soul yielded under the hammering to 
which he was subjected, and he confessed, as The World 
summarized his statement, ^Hhat since he has been in the 
Board of Aldermen every vote he has given in favor of a 
street-railroad franchise has been bought." 

In April, 1886, The World was able to announce as a 
^'Triiunph of Public Opinion" the indictment of "nearly 
an entire Board of Aldermen on charges of accepting 
bribes." This "unprecedented event proves the irresis- 
tible power of public opinion. Whatever may follow. 



48 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

the fact that all the members of the infamous Board of 
1884, except two who were honest, two who are dead, and 
three who have saved themselves temporarily by abscond- 
ing, will be brought to the bar of a criminal court and 
tried before a jury cannot fail to have a purifying effect.'^ 

Of the boodle aldermen some went to jail, some took 
refuge in Montreal with Moloney, the clerk of the 
board. One, McQuade, was released in 1888 on a 
technicality after serving twenty months in prison. 
Punishment was, upon the whole, a disappointment, but 
The World's urgency helped secure a law providing that 
franchises should be sold at auction for compensation to 
the city '^instead of, as in the past, buying up a sufficient 
number of Aldermanic votes to pass the franchise over a 
possible veto and cheating the city.'' 

The World in these years exposed the stock-watering 
of the elevated railroad lines to prevent their payment to 
the city of profits in excess of 10 per cent., as provided 
in the law authorizing construction. The watering was 
done through the formation of the Manhattan Company 
as a holding corporation with fresh capital to lease the 
New York and Metropolitan companies. Other matters 
which the newspaper urged as an advocate included the 
Saturday half -holiday, which it gained and for years pro- 
tected against efforts at repeal by bankers and others; 
the opening of the park museums on Sunday, then op- 
posed by influential citizens; and the effort to secure some 
relaxation of the blue laws to permit of playing games on 
Sunday. In an effort to show the absurdity of a pro- 
hibition which is only now beginning to yield The World 
engaged a baseball park at Sunnyside, New Jersey, and 
chartered a steamboat to take boys' ball clubs there, 
only to be defeated by the New Jersey blue law. 

The most stirring events of 1886 were its labor troubles. 
In Chicago hard times and anarchistic agitation led to 
the tragedy of the Haymarket, in which seven policemen 



LIBERTY 49 

were killed and eighty-three persons injured by bombs 
thrown during an open-air meeting. In New York there 
were bitterly contested street-car strikes. Impossible for 
any one with a heart not made of stone not to sympathize 
with men who were toiling sixteen hours a day while a 
bought vote in the Board of Aldermen could add two 
million dollars to the value of the Broadway and Seventh 
Avenue Railroad franchise; the contrast was too disheart- 
ening. But The World's sympathy did not lead it to con- 
done disorder. It warned the labor-unions that they 
would act wisely if they should instruct members that 
their first duty was to obey the laws. 

Out of the labor agitation of the year grew an event 
that will be remembered — the nomination of Henry 
George, author of Progress and Poverty, for Mayor of 
New York. The World was practically alone in the local 
journalistic field in treating Mr. George's candidacy with 
the respect which his ability and honesty, and the just 
grievances of many who followed him, demanded. ^'If 
the working-man's party," it said on August 29th, '^is to 
take a separate political existence and to name its own 
candidates for office, as the Prohibition party has done, it 
could not make a better selection for Mayor than Mr. 
George." Discussing the candidacy on September 26th, 
it said: ^'Mr. George's theories will neither make him a 
bad officer nor a good one." He ^' would be an experi- 
ment, and this, we believe, is the most valid argument 
that can be brought against him. His philosophy, so 
long as it does not conffict with the official oath to execute 
the laws, is immaterial." 

''What the George Movement Means" is treated more 
at length on October 7th: 
/• 

The George movement is a protest — a deep, disgusted protest, 
not wholly free from anger — against the evils, abuses and cor- 
ruptions that are rooted in our politics and bearing fruit in our 



50 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

government. These evils and abuses do not need to be de- 
scribed. They are seen and felt by all who note the condition 
of public affairs in this city. 

For more than twenty-five years the people have sought to 
secure honest and efficient local government, a decent respect 
for law, and a proper regard for popular rights through the 
instrumentahty of political parties and of so-called *' Citizens'" 
movements. They have for the most part failed. The long 
record of Bossing and Stealing, broken only by occasional 
spasms of virtuous indignation, ends for the present with a city 
government honeycombed with frauds — with Aldermen in 
prison, fugitives from justice or awaiting indictment; with 
a debt of near $100,000,000 and a yearly budget of $33,000,000; 
and with a management of municipal affairs that has become 
proverbial for extravagance, jobbery and inefficiency. 

While The World considered the George theory of land 
taxation ^'visionary and harmful," it refused to be stam- 
peded into panic. Abram S. Hewitt was nominated by a 
combination of the Democratic ^^ halls" to meet the 
storm, and The World gave him its support. The Re- 
publican nominee for Mayor was a young man of twenty- 
eight years beginning to be well known in the city. The 
Worldj in terms rather amusing, considering Mr. Roose- 
velt's subsequent course upon the tariff, discussed ^^ Still 
Another Free-Trader": 

The RepubHcan City Convention last night nominated for 
Mayor the candidate of the Committee of One Hundred, Mr. 
Theodore Roosevelt. The nominee is a young man of wealth 
who has had very little business experience, but who is some- 
thing of a reformer, a very good lecturer and a first-class bear- 
hunter. . . . 

The most distressing thing is that, upon the theory of the 
Republicans that every man who favors an abatement of the 
surplus-producing war tariff is a Free-Trader, Mr. Roosevelt 
will not be able to command the support of the organs that 
are clamoring for the "American I-dee" in our local poHtics. 



LIBERTY 51 

If The World had been gifted with prophetic vision it 
might have added that a greater menace than Henry 
George had been selected by the RepubHcans, to turn 
upon them years afterward. 

Mr. George's candidacy threw many men of property 
into hysteria. Repubhcan votes were swung to Hewitt 
in such numbers that Mr. Roosevelt received but two- 
thirds of Blaine's strength in 1884, and little more than 
three-fourths of the vote cast for the Republican candidate 
for the Court of Appeals on the same day. The figures 
as later canvassed were: Hewitt, 90,552; George, 68,110; 
Roosevelt, 60,435. 

It has been persistently held that Henry George was 
robbed of ofiice; that with a fair election he would have 
been the Mayor, not Hewitt. Though the disparity of the 
Hewitt and the George votes as counted seems to forbid 
such a supposition, the Democratic bosses were united for 
Hewitt, the Republican bosses were satisfied to see him 
elected and only desired to keep their machine regular; 
and the possibilities for crooked work, in the absence of a 
secret ballot and of safeguards at the counting, were 
such as do not now exist. 

More helpful at the time, more applicable to political 
conditions for the future, were The WorMs comments 
upon Mr. George's vote the day after election: 

The deep-voiced protest conveyed in the 67,000 votes for 
Henry George against the combined power of both political 
parties, of Wall Street and the business interests, and of the 
public press should prove a warning to the community to heed 
the demands of labor so far as they are just and reasonable 
— and that is much further than the majority of citizens have 
thus far been willing to admit. ... It is plutocracy that makes 
socialism. To remove the effect abate the cause. 



DARKNESS 

1887-1888 

Mr. Pulitzer^s Great Misfortune — How a Blind Man Edited a Paper for 
Twenty -five Years — His Methods of Work — Friendship for Roscoe 
Conhling — Presentation of the Gladstone Memorial — The Pacific Railroad 
Frauds — Off-year Election of 1887 and Cleveland's Tariff Message — 
Harrison's Nomination and Election — The Murchison Letter and the 
Campaign — The ^^ Great Question^' of War Taxation Left Unsettled. 

To make The World a journal of public opinion its 
founder had four years of comparative health. Thence- 
forth he worked under difficulties that to a less ardent 
soul would have seemed insuperable. 

Mr. Pulitzer had always toiled at high pressure for long 
hours with few intermissions for rest. In 1887 nervous 
prostration took him from The World office, and he was 
never able to resume desk -work. He was but forty 
years old. Success in his chosen field was won. He was 
still in the full tide of physical strength, tall, slender, 
athletic, a fine horseman, a strong swimmer, passionately 
fond of travel and of cultured society; and he was physi- 
cally a broken man. His nervous organization had failed 
him. His eyesight, never of the best, he was losing 
altogether. From this time he could never read, though 
the loss of sight was not so absolute as to prevent him 
from vaguely distinguishing objects or telling light from 
darkness. 

Gradually out of the chaos of his plans and the bitter- 
ness of his despair he evolved the methods that enabled 
him, wherever he might be, to keep his hand upon the 



DARKNESS 53 

great machine he had set in motion. In the article upon 
^'Mr. Puhtzer's Journalism/' printed two days after his 
death, a hint is given of what these methods were: 

His chief concern centered in the editorial page as the expres- 
sion of the paper's conscience, courage and convictions. To 
that he devoted infinite care and attention. Sick or well, 
it was never wholly absent from his thoughts. When he was 
well he had it read to him every day, and expressed his opinion 
about every editorial article — the style in which it was written, 
the manner in which the thought was expressed, whether 
the editorial was strong or weak, whether it served any useful 
public purpose, whether it said the thing that a great news- 
paper ought to have said. 

When ill health made it impossible for him to have the 
editorial page read every day he would keep the files for weeks, 
and then, when his condition permitted, he would go over them 
with painstaking care, always from the point of view of a 
detached critic, seeking only to determine whether the page 
was taking the fullest advantage of its opportunities for public 
service and whether it was measuring up to the high standard 
that he had set for it. 

Nothing was ever allowed to interfere with its independence 
and its freedom of expression. There were certain questions 
about which he became convinced that, in spite of all his efforts, 
he was possibly prejudiced. In these matters he exacted a 
pledge that no suggestions or instructions, or even commands, 
from him would ever be followed, but that the paper would 
always say what an independent, untrammeled newspaper 
ought to say in performing its duties to the people. 

Much has been said about Mr. Pulitzer's marvelous news 
sense. There was nothing weird or miraculous about it; 
it was born of an insatiable thirst for information and a restless 
curiosity about everything of human interest. He wanted to 
know. What? When? Where? How? He took it for granted 
that hundreds of thousands of other people wanted to know. 

It has been remarked that Mr. Pulitzer's blindness 
made him a greater man by concentrating his thought. 



54 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Concentration, at any rate, was the word that best 
described his methods of working. Presiding at the 
quarter-century celebration of The World in 1908, Ralph 
Pulitzer said: 

I have in my mind's eye the picture, seen many and many a 
time, of a man in the throes of sightlessness and suffering, 
insisting on a paragraph or phrase, just dictated, being read 
and reread to him over and over again, listening with painful 
attention to catch and correct any slightest suspicion of mis- 
statement in a fact, any slightest shade of overemphasis in an 
adjective, any possibility of conveying an impression that was 
not altogether accurate and scrupulously just. 

It was natural that a man forty years old, stricken not 
quite blind, and suffering mainly from nervous troubles 
should at first have spent his energies in seeking recovery 
for normal activities, not in developing ingenious methods 
for doing his life-work under handicap. Yet in the darkest 
hours when Mr. Pulitzer was seeking vainly to restore 
his fading sight and ruined health he never failed to feel 
the pressure of public questions. 

The death of Roscoe Conkling, a sequel of the great 
blizzard of March 12, 1888, was a personal shock to Mr. 
Pulitzer in his illness. He admired Conkling for his 
ability and integrity, and employed him as counsel. In 
two senatorial elections The World had urged Conkling's 
name upon the Republicans. When Elbridge G. Lapham's 
term was about to expire it pointed out that ^^ Blaine's 
overthrow and the destruction of his forces, which could 
only be held together by plunder, make Roscoe Conkling 
more a Republican than ever, for he becomes a necessity 
to the reconstruction of the party and its continued 
existence," Because Lapham's successor must be a 
Republican The World advised Democrats in the Legisla- 
ture to unite with a few Republicans ''to elect an able and 
honest Republican. ' ' Lapham's successor was William M. 



DARKNESS 55 

Evarts, whose selection '^ stamps the Republican party of 
New York again with Blaine's seal. The hand of Blaine 
is apparent in the result. . . . Nevertheless, the defeat 
of the Golden Calf, [Levi P.] Morton, is a great ad- 
vantage.^' 

Again in 1887 The World pressed Conkling upon the 
attention of the Stalwart Republicans and the Democratic 
minority. But the Democrats in Albany had not been 
educated to disregard partisan consistency for public 
advantage. Nor was the breach between Stalwarts and 
Half-breeds to be healed by the advancement of either 
of the leaders of faction. Conkling never forgave Mr. 
Blaine, the man who in a speech in Congress had com- 
pared him with Henry Winter Davis as ^'Hyperion to 
a satyr, Thersites to Hercules, mud to marble, dunghill 
to diamond, a singed cat to a Bengal tiger, a whining 
puppy to a roaring lion" ; who had spoken of ^^his haughty 
disdain, his grandiloquent swell, his majestic, superemi- 
nent, overpowering, turkey - gobbler strut." Nor was 
Blaine more ready than Conkling to forgive and forget, 
though perhaps more inclined to a formal truce. 

The World had not long left doubt in the minds of its 
readers whether it would assail Democratic less vigor- 
ously than Republican misconduct. The antics of Tam- 
many in the 1887 Legislature gave opportunity to show its 
independence. Its members cast a solid vote in favor of 
the repeal of the Civil Service Reform Act, and opposed 
higher Hcense fees for hquor-sellers. ^'The people of this 
State," said The World, '^do not want the Civil Service Act 
repealed. They do want to see diminish the number of 
places where hquor is sold." Opposed to prohibition and 
to oppressive Sunday laws as assaults upon personal 
liberty, it has held to the position of those early years upon 
higher license. '^ There are too many dram-shops," was 
its theory. ''The license law is disregarded in a most 
demoralizing manner. Society has a right to a more 



56 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

adequate reimbursement for the expenses of crime and 
pauperism caused by the traffic.'^ The Saxton license 
bill, finally passed by the Legislature under its urging, was 
a precursor of the present Raines law. It was vetoed 
by Governor Hill on the ground, which did not satisfy 
The World, that its revenues were to be applied to local- 
ities where they did not originate. 

In 1886 The World, because of its success with the 
Statue of Liberty pedestal, had been asked to raise a fund 
in the United States to aid Home Rule in the British 
parliamentary campaign, and did so. In 1887 a similar 
fund was provided through its urgings for a memorial to 
Mr. Gladstone from political friends in America, and on 
July 9th, at Dollis Hall, his suburban residence near 
London, the memorial was presented. 

Said Mr. Pulitzer upon that occasion: 

Mr. Gladstone, 10,689 people of the first city of America 
ask the first citizen of England to accept this gift. They ask 
you to accept it as an offering of their sincerest sympathy. 
They ask you to accept it as a token of their personal admiration. 
They ask you to accept it as a tribute to your great public 
services in the cause of civil and religious freedom. They 
ask you to accept it for your determination that the principles 
of liberty and justice, which have made England so free and 
great, shall no longer be denied to Ireland. They ask you to 
accept it as an evidence that there is an irrepressible sympathy 
between the liberty-loving masses which is more sincere than 
that of rulers. They especially ask you to accept it because 
in your great struggle for Home Rule and humanity for Ireland 
you represent essentially those American principles of repre- 
sentation, legislation, and political equality by which the 
greatness of their own country and their own well-being were 
made possible. . . . Americans know what England has done 
for liberty and civilization to all mankind. They know how 
your people have sympathized with every struggle against 
tyranny in Europe — in Greece as well as in Italy, in Poland 
as well as in Hungary. . . . They see in their own country 



DARKNESS 67 

forty -six different States and territorial legislatures, besides 
their federal Congress; they see in Germany twenty-six dif- 
ferent legislatures, besides the imperial parliament; they see 
in Austria-Hungary eighteen state legislatures, besides two 
general parliaments; they see separate legislatures in Norway 
and Sweden; they see a council-general in eighty-seven depart- 
ments of France; they see even in conquered Alsace-Lorraine 
a legislative provincial committee; they see, besides the Domin- 
ion Parliament, seven separate and distinct legislatures in 
Canada and eight in Australia. 

Why, then, refuse a parliament to Ireland? Passions and 
resentments may suggest an answer; peace and patriotism 
cannot. 

Mr. Gladstone in his reply said that some of his 
countrymen expressed jealousy of American interference 
in English affairs. If he was to consider the interference 
of one nation by the expression of opinion on the affairs 
of another unjustifiable and intolerable, that sentence 
would fall heavily upon England, because she had been 
interfering with everybody's concern throughout the 
world, instructing countries what they ought to do and 
how to do it. 

Triumph attended in 1887 The World^s efforts to secure 
from Congress an official invescigation of the relations 
of the United States government to the land-grant 
Pacific railways. For two years it had been urging this 
step, not wholly because the country had been cheated out 
of an immense sum, but also because the pressure of cor- 
rupt interests put a stain upon Congress. Finally in 
March, 1887, it was able to say that the resolution was in 
the hands of the President and would be signed. The 
necessity for inquiry is revealed in comments upon the 
disclosures later made : 

Mr. Huntington now admits, under oath, the expenditure of 
over $6,000,000 by his company between 1874 and 1885 (with 
one year missing) for '^egal" and ''miscellaneous purposes." 



58 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

He says that Franchott, his first agent at Washington, was paid 
$20,000 a year for his own services in ''explaining things" to 
pubHc servants, and may have been given as high as $30,000 
or $40,000 a year, for which no vouchers were asked or given. — 

April 29, 1887. 

"I had no idea of corrupting members of Congress or having 
a penny expended in any other than a lawful way,'^ said C. P. 
Huntington to an interviewer yesterday. . . . Yet on March 
7, 1877, he wrote to ''friend Colton'': "I stayed in Washington 
two days to fix up Railroad Committee of Senate." On October 
30th of the same year: "I think the Railroad Committee is 
right, but the Committee on Territories I do not like. A 
different one was promised me." On January 17, 1873: "It 
costs money to fix things, so I knew that his [Scott's] bill 
would not pass. I beheve that with $200,000 I can pass our 
bill, but I take it it is not worth that much to us." And 
these are some of the words from which Mr. Huntington says 
"none but an evil mind could extract wrong." — August 23, 
1887. 

It may refresh some memories to recall from the report 
of this commission of inquiry that the government loaned 
the Pacific railroads $64,623,512, which, with interest, 
grew to over $125,000,000 in 1895; that the companies 
undertook to issue only paid-up stock; that, nevertheless, 
the stock actually paid for was less than $2,000,000, while 
the stock sworn to was more than $97,000,000; that the 
companies issued $172,000,000 of fictitious capital, dis- 
sipated more than $107,000,000 which should have been 
paid to the government, and charged traflSc $8,000,000 a 
year more than would have been necessary to pay a fair 
profit upon an honest construction price. 

The World was not engaged in digging up Pacific rail- 
way scandals merely for the sake of setting unpleasant 
reading before the people. Out of the Huntington sen- 
sation it fashioned a club to beat Congress into passing 
the interstate-commerce law of 1887, the first great act 



DARKNESS 59 

in a line of reform transportation statutes. The force of its 
presentation of the case for regulation may be shown in an 
example: 

A Question 

The Interstate-Commerce bill is opposed by Jay Gould; 

By C. P. Huntington; 

By the Western cattle rings; 

By Philip D. Armour; 

By stock jobbers, large and small; 

By corporations generally; 

By Leland Stanford, the millionaire and corporation 
Senator. 
It is favored by 

The Western farmers; 

The Eastern merchants; 

The boards of trade and transportation; 

Anti-monopoHsts in general; 

The people. 
Ought the Interstate-Commerce bill to become a law or to 
suffer defeat? 

The World^s support of Cleveland was varied by ad- 
monition, as when, in June, 1887, he did a generous thing 
at a wrong time by ordering the return of Confederate 
battle-flags, an order afterward withdrawn. This was a 
mistake, The World bluntly said: 

The order was made to include the Union as well as Confed- 
erate flags; but the Northern regiments, for the most part, 
brought their flags home or have since had them returned from 
Washington. So that the real significance of the action was in 
the return to Southern States of flags captured in a war for the 
preservation of the Union. 

What better could be done with them? might now be 
asked. But that question did not sound in 1887 as to-day 
it might. The World, having at heart the greater par- 
ticipation of the Southern soldier in the political life of 



60 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

the nation, held that the flags would better remain '^in 
the keeping of a government that now represents a 
restored Union of loyal States, rather than be held as 
symbols of a lost cause in communities that have no lack 
of mementos. '^ 
. But the great controversy of 1887 was on public taxation. 

After the election of 1886 the Democrats still held the 
House by a narrow majority of but fifteen votes, while 
the Republican margin in the Senate was reduced to two. 
This situation blocked tariff legislation during the re- 
mainder of Cleveland's first term. The Republicans, 
with aid from Randall Democrats, passed an extrava- 
gant Dependent Pension bill and River and Harbor bill 
chiefly to dispose of the surplus and make revenue reduc- 
tion seem less necessary. With a similar purpose Mr. 
Randall renewed the proposal to remove the remaining 
taxes on liquors and tobacco. The World supported 
Cleveland in vetoing the Pension and River and Harbor 
bills while the surplus continued to pile up. 

The off-year elections of 1887, though they could 
neither alter the complexion of Congress nor give hope of 
immediate tariff reform, did encourage President Cleve- 
land by their evidence of the strength of Democratic 
sentiment to send to Congress on December 6th the 
admirable message which. The World said, gave the 
party "what it has long lacked — an issue and a leader. 
The issue is tax reform. The leader is the President. '^ 
The result of the election in the President's own state 
The World had summarized as settling three things: 

President Cleveland will be renominated by his party. 

Mr. Blaine will not be renominated by the Republicans. 

Mr. George will not control the election next year. 

New York is the pivotal State. Mr. Cleveland's friends 
have had a complete triumph. They are entitled to the fruits 
of the victory. Grover Cleveland is indeed a lucky man; and 
James G. Blaine may be said to be a dead cock in the pit. 



DARKNESS 61 

With the issuance of the tariff-reform message The World 
swung wide into the current of the great issue. Three 
days after the message appeared it thus swept aside dis- 
cussion of schedules and rates with the question ^^In a 
Nutshell." It tells us all we need know of that almost 
forgotten fight: 

Facts: 

1. Surplus taxation for the current fiscal year, $113,000,000. 

2. The Treasury glutted at the close of the current fiscal 
year with $140,000,000 taken from private enterprise and stored 
in public vaults. 

3. John Sherman's blundering funding of the public debt 
forbids bonds to be called or paid, except with his own premium 
to the bondholder, until 1891, when $230,544,600 become due 
and payable at their face; and 1907, when $732,440,850 become 
due and payable at their face. 

Proposals : 

1. The Democratic policy: Off with the needless taxes on 
clothing, fuel, shelter, food. Let alone the taxes on whisky, 
beer, tobacco. 

2. The Republican policy: Off with the taxes on whisky, 
beer, tobacco, so as to keep the war taxes on clothing, fuel, 
shelter, food. 

The tariff measure which Democracy proposed was 
known as the Mills bill, from Roger Q. Mills, of Texas, 
chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. As The 
World summarized it, it proposed to '^cut off, in round 
numbers, $78,000,000 of the sin-plus revenue. Of this 
amount $54,000,000 is taken from the tariff and $24,000,- 
000 from internal taxes on tobacco. It adds to the free 
list flax, hemp, jute, salt, tin plate, wool, and a few other 
articles. The present average rate of the tariff on dutiable 
goods is 47.10 per cent. The Mills bill would leave it at 
40 per cent. The present average rate on articles affected 
by the bill is 54.16 per cent. The proposed rate would 
leave it on these articles at 33.36 per cent," 



62 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

A long, long way from being a ^* free-trade measure '^ was 
the one thus described. Clay's tariff was but 20 per cent. 

Public revolt against the tariff had not risen to the 
height it reached in 1892, after the passage of the 
McKinley bill, but it was unmistakable. Senator Aldrich 
said that revenue ought to be cut by $100,000,000. 
Senator Allison, returning from a trip home to Iowa, re- 
ported that "the party which fails to do its share in 
reducing the tariff taxes will lose in public favor.'' Yet 
so wild a proposal as the division of the surplus among 
the states instead of reducing taxation found favor with 
John Sherman, Ohio's Presidential candidate, as it had 
earlier found favor with James G. Blaine, the beaten 
candidate of 1884. 

The issue was made. The selection of candidates 
remained. Upon the Democratic side Mr. Cleveland's 
candidacy was a matter of course. For the Republican 
nomination there was rivalry. Mr. Blaine, who since 
1884 had been in poor health, wrote on January 25th 
from Florence, Italy, to B. F. Jones, steel manufacturer 
in Pittsburg and chairman of the Republican National 
Committee, that his name would not be presented to the 
convention. His friends continued to urge him with 
such effect that on May 22d George William Curtis said 
in a World interview that he was "probably the most 
popular man in the United States." No parallel to the 
devotion he inspired had been seen in American politics 
since "Harry of the West." 

Yet he was out of the question. "The Republican 
nomination," The World said, on May 31st, "will go to a 
second-class, not to a first-class man. ... It will be a 
Western candidate." The nomination of Benjamin Har- 
rison it thus greeted: 

It will be said of Mr. Harrison that he is nominated for his 
name; that if his grandfather had not been President of the 



DARKNESS 63 

United States, and his great-grandfather a signer of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, he would not have been the candidate. 
But this is idle talk. . . . He is a prominent citizen of a 
doubtful State, and he had the support of its delegates, all 
but unanimously. He has a good soldier record, having gone 
into the war a Second Lieutenant of volunteers, and having 
come out of it a brevet Brigadier-General. He is a thoroughly 
equipped lawyer, and he has experience as a statesman. . . . 
Moreover, he has always been a practical civil-service reformer 
and an extreme protectionist. 

It is singular how little the argument for tariff reduction 
has changed in twenty years. How The World fought 
for lower taxes may be briefly shown by citations from 
its editorial colimms as applicable now as the day they 
were penned : 

A Few Definitions 

Taxation for surplus is robbery. 

A tariff for bounties is robbery. 

A tariff is a tax. 

"Definition is argument." — August 27th, 

Republican Paradoxes 

That 'Hhere^is no surplus," but that it was not safe to 
adjourn Congress until a bill had been reported in the Senate 
to cut down the taxes $75,000,000. . . . 

That America is the greatest, freest, and most prosperous 
country under the sun, . . . but that without a Chinese-wall 
tariff America will be at the mercy of a little, crowded island 
three thousand miles off, which is dependent upon outsiders 
for food. 

That the effect of the tariff is to lower prices, but that 
without the higher prices which the tariff enables the manu- 
facturer to charge he could not pay higher wages to his work- 
ing-men. 

That prices are as low here as in Europe, but that we should 
be undersold but for a 47-per-cent. tariff. 

That the tariff is not a tax, but that if it is reduced there 
will be no money for pensions. 



64 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

That the tariff is a tax, but that ''the foreigner pays it." — 
October 26th. 

The campaign was far different from that of 1884. 
The Democrats, entrenched in the White House and the 
departments, but blocked by a divided Congress from 
accomplishing needed legislation, had the appearance of 
power without the substance. Conkling was dead. 
Blaine spoke for Harrison, in whose Cabinet he was to 
be Secretary of State. Four years had softened the 
memory of Republican corruption. Republican civil- 
service reformers, satisfied with Harrison^s attitude, 
had little excuse for leaving their party. David B. HilFs 
Democratic state convention in New York, by trying to 
dodge the tariff issue, had not bettered Cleveland's 
chances. The Republicans did not this time neglect 
John Y. McKane, whose pocket vote had alone been 
enough to elect Cleveland in 1884. Nor was Mr. Cleve- 
land, his luck for once failing him, to escape his Burchard. 

This thankless part was played by the British Minister 
in Washington, Sir Lionel Sackville- West, to whom a decoy 
letter had been written from California signed '^Murchi- 
son," affecting to ask advice how former British subjects who 
had become American citizens should vote. Falling into 
the trap, the minister replied in favor of Mr. Cleveland, 
and the publication of the letter threw many voters into 
a rage recalling that of four years before, but impelling 
them now in the contrary direction. Mr. Cleveland was 
obliged to ask for Sackville- West's recall, and he went 
from the country a disgusted man. 

Of what use was it for The World to oppose common 
sense to jingoism? Manfully it set at the task. Sack- 
ville- West had said in the Murchison letter that the 
Democratic party was ^' still desirous of maintaining 
friendly relations with Great Britain.'' "What party 
isn't?" The World asked. "Is the Republican party in 



DARKNESS 65 

favor of war? If so, it is at least prudent in withholding 
its declaration until a Democratic Administration can 
restore the Navy, which the Republican regime permitted 
to go to decay.'' 

It was good defensive campaigning, but a poor substi- 
stute for the smashing blows that had laid Blaine low. 
Cleveland was beaten in New York by thirteen thousand 
votes and in the electoral college by sixty-five; yet he had 
a popular plurality of ninety-eight thousand. Eleven 
months had not been long enough to break the protective- 
tariff superstition. But the President at least ^ ' gave to his 
party an issue worthy of such a contest. He lifted the 
plane of national politics from a petty strife for spoils 
to a noble contest for principle. He buried beyond res- 
urrection the dead issues of the past and brought both 
parties face to face with a living question of the present." 

With confidence The World faced the future: 

The war taxes will be reduced. The surplus will be stopped. 
The tariff that enriches the few at the expense of the many will 
be reformed. President Cleveland and his party can afford to 
wait for the vindication of their position in this contest. 

Thousands of children born since this was written cast 
in 1912 their first votes for President, and the ^^ great 
question" was not yet '' settled right." The tax that 
^'enriches the few at the expense of the many" was still 
to be lightened upon the shoulders of the people. 



VI 



"the shopping woman'' 



1889-1890 



Blaine a Great Figure in the Harrison Administration — A ''Forward'^ 
Policy in Samoa and Hawaii — The Mafia Murders in New Orleans — 
Mr. Pulitzer's Wiesbaden Despatch — Tammany Returns to Power in 
New York — A Century of Protection Closing in Gloom — McKinley Bill 
Stirs Republicans to Revolt — The Deb&cle of 1890 — The Silver Question 
Begins to Trouble Democracy. 

After the return of the Republican party to power in 
1889 the chief poHtical figure in the United States was 
James G. Blaine. 

Beaten candidate for the Presidency, invalid and dis- 
heartened, a fatalist in his belief that the stars in their 
courses fought against his supreme ambition as they had 
fought against Henry Clay's, Blaine rose by sheer intel- 
lect to greater heights of political power and popular favor 
than he had yet scaled. 

Leaving the White House, Grover Cleveland entered 
upon the practice of the law in New York. Mr. Blaine, 
by the understanding that secured for Harrison his aid 
in the campaign, became Secretary of State. 

Upon the announcement of this honor for its great 
antagonist The World commented that it was "perhaps 
inevitable," but that "unless travel and reflection have 
modified Mr. Blaine's ideas of a foreign policy, and ex- 
perience and disappointment have chastened his spirit, 
President Harrison will have reason to regret and the 
country to deplore this selection." There followed one 



^^THE SHOPPING WOMAN^' 67 

of the most stormy periods in the conduct of its foreign 
affairs which the country had known. But Blaine won 
praise from his severest critics by his clear view of do- 
mestic issues when most of the leaders of his party went 
astray. 

The long-drawn-out Samoan troubles, with which 'Hhe 
Monroe doctrine has no more to do than with Cyprus," 
first brought The World into conflict with the Blaine 
foreign policies, not far different from those of present-day 
Imperialists. Our participation in the Samoan govern- 
ment would now be well forgotten, along with the crisis 
that led to it, if that stirring story of tribal war and the 
plots and counterplots of consuls and beach-combers 
in an island earthly paradise had not been illumined by 
the genius of Robert Louis Stevenson. 

The World opposed ^Hhe absurdity and wrong of 
American participation in any such business.'' ^^The 
sole question," it said, when the Samoan treaty was an- 
nounced on January 20, 1890, '4s whether or not the 
United States is prepared to enter into a partnership 
with Great Britain and Germany in the business of 
seizing and governing the Pacific islands through the 
agency of a titular sovereign. And every tradition and 
principle of the Government is against this preposterous 
and entangling alliance." 

Another forerunner of Pacific imperialism came when 
in December, 1889, President Harrison suggested that 
Congress should invite Hawaii to send delegates to 
Secretary Blaine's Pan-American conference. "May it 
be," asked The Worlds 'Hhat Hawaii is the country which 
Mr. Blaine has found on the bargain-counter in his shop- 
ping-tour for territory?" Its suspicion that the adminis- 
tration contemplated the annexation of the Sandwich 
Islands proved correct. 

Another issue in which The World criticized Mr. Blaine 
at first, though it later softened its asperity, was the fur- 



68 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

seal controversy with Great Britain. Blaine appeared to 
lay claim to a mare clausum bringing under exclusive 
American control the whole Pribylov archipelago. Later 
he proved willing to arbitrate the question. The World 
heartily supported all movements that furthered arbitra- 
tion. Its comment upon the final treaty to settle the 
sealing dispute, November 12, 1891, was a promise of 
greater services to peace: 

Arbitration is civilization's substitute for the brutality of war. 

Arguments cost less than ammunition. Reasoning comes 
cheaper than throat-cutting. 

Justice is all that any civilized nation really wants in any 
dispute, and justice is much more likely to be the outcome of 
arbitration than of armed conflict. 

In agreeing to submit the Behring Sea question to arbitration 
the governments of Great Britain and the United States have 
made their bow to the enlightened sentiment of the people of 
both countries. 

This is civilization. This is progress. 

When in March, 1891, the people of New Orleans, 
exasperated by a number of Mafia murders, lynched 
several Italian subjects Mr. Blaine did not delay his 
acknowledgment of the responsibility of the United 
States to the government and the families of the dead 
men. Premier Rudini in Rome used the outbreak for 
political effect, and when Blaine explained what Rudini 
well knew, that our federal government could not compel 
a Louisiana jury to convict the slayers of the Italians, 
Rudini sought to coax European statesmen to join in a 
declaration that the United States ought to manage its 
affairs better. The World found in Blaine^s skilful final 
reply to Rudini proof that ^Hhe ^diplomatic incident' 
had its origin mainly in the necessities of Italian home 
politics." Rudini's ministry fell only three weeks after 
the payment of twenty-five thousand dollars for the 
families of the slain Italians. 



''THE SHOPPING WOMAN^* 69 

Again in the recognition of the repubhc of Brazil was 
Blaine in his element; here The World was his hearty 
sympathizer in congratulating the continent that ^'no 
king mocks manhood with the flummery of a court '^ 
within its confines. 

But Mr. Blaine^s wisdom in domestic affairs far out- 
shone his brilliant provocative foreign adventures. He 
was against the policy of his party in urging the Force 
bill. He was against its folly in the McEanley tariff. 
Out of the wreck of Republican hopes in 1890 he alone 
emerged with prestige enhanced. 

The Federal Elections or Force bill was an attempt 
of the Republican junta to put, in the words of Senator 
Frye, of Maine, ''a bayonet behind every ballot.'' It was 
an attempt to restore in the awakening South the condi- 
tions which had made carpet-baggism almost a greater 
curse than the war; to turn over its government to 
ignorance, spoliation, waste, and greed. Designing men 
in the North were not above cynically using the negro 
problem as a means of perpetuating the power to tax the 
people through the tariff; but there was unquestionably 
a large body of honest men who felt that the newly 
enfranchised slave needed the protection of the ballot, 
and his ballot the protection of the federal government. 
The World reminded Republicans how in 1884 their Na- 
tional Committee had issued from Nashville an '' Address 
to the People of the South," and how they had appealed 
''with earnest good faith and in the spirit of American 
fraternity to the intelligence, enterprise, honorable am- 
bitions and American instincts and aspirations of the 
Southern people.'' Republican '^ earnest good faith" 
was now shown in a measure to put Southern elections for 
representatives under control of federal agents, creating 
a power such as '^ should not be bestowed upon any 
administration or any party." 

yix. Blaine had been as ready as his party associates 



70 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

to flaunt the ''bloody shirt'' in previous years. His 
common sense now rejected the Force bill, and his hostility 
and the opposition or luke-warm approval of his followers 
so delayed its passage that repeal by a Democratic Con- 
gress followed before much harm was done. 

While these stirring events were going forward in 
national politics The World, now firmly established, 
planned for its future home a noble building. The be- 
ginning of this structure, at first but half its present size, 
drew from Mr. Pulitzer, then upon a sickbed in Wies- 
baden, this message of aspiration, read at the laying of the 
corner-stone, October 10, 1889: 

God grant that this structure be the enduring home of a 
newspaper forever unsatisfied with merely printing news — 
forever fighting every form of wrong — forever independent — 
forever advancing in enlightenment and progress — forever 
wedded to truly democratic ideas — forever aspiring to be a 
moral force — forever rising to a higher plane of perfection as 
a public institution. 

God grant that The World may forever strive toward the 
highest ideals — be both a daily schoolhouse and a daily forum, 
both a daily teacher and a daily tribune, an instrument of 
justice, a terror to crime, an aid to education, an exponent of 
true Americanism. 

Let it ever be remembered that this edifice owes its existence 
to the public; that its architect is popular favor; that its corner- 
stone is liberty and justice; that its every stone comes from the 
people and represents public approval for public services 
rendered. 

God forbid that the vast army following the standard of 
The World should in this or in future generations ever find it 
faithless to those ideas and moral principles to which alone it 
owes its life, and without which I would rather have it perish. 

In the spirit of this message The World in these years 
interested itself in many matters but remotely connected 
with politics. It led the movement for the wider in- 



''THE SHOPPING WOMAN'' 71 

struction of the people in evening courses which has re- 
sulted in the great free-lecture system. It urged the 
appointment of women upon school boards and as police 
matrons. It continued to advocate a high-license bill. 
It pushed ballot reform to success against obstacles raised 
by the bosses of both parties. In this work great aid was 
rendered by the Knights of Labor and similar organiza- 
tions. Perhaps some day a monograph will be written 
upon the public services of American labor-unions in 
urging political reforms. 

A great injustice which The World denounced was the 
persistent refusal of the New York Republicans to call a 
constitutional convention and their neglect to take a 
census of the state as by law directed. By these means 
they continued to carry the state Senate and to hold or 
tie the Legislature, even with a Democratic Governor and 
a heavy Democratic popular plurality. 

Tlie World continued its running fight to compel the 
opening of the Metropolitan and other city museums on 
Sundays. In a campaign to bring the Columbian Expo- 
sition to New York instead of Chicago it was beaten, in 
part because of Senator Piatt's unwillingness that local 
advantage should come to Tammany Hall, in part be- 
cause New York business men were not overanxious to 
provide money. 

The influence of Piatt was manifested to the city's 
disadvantage in many ways. It long blocked the consoli- 
dation of Greater New York. It delayed rapid transit; 
finally, in 1891, the first Rapid Transit Commission was 
constituted by a deal that kept the appointment of the 
commissioners out of the hands of city authorities. 
Nor would it have been possible to make such use of the 
fear of Tammany had it not been a name repugnant to the 
country as a synonym of misgovernment. 

That Tammany had again secured a firm foothold was 
partly The World's fault. Mr. Hewitt, elected in 1886, 



72 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

though a man of abihty and integrity, had failed as Mayor, 
as perhaps any man was bound to fail with such a mingled 
crew of tax-eaters behind him. Hence in 1888 The 
World opposed his re-election. Fortune provided Tam- 
many in Hugh J. Grant with a candidate who had easily 
won a reputation. He had simply been one of the two 
men in the boodle Board of Aldermen who were demon- 
strably honest. The World supported him for Mayor 
and opposed the Tammany candidate for district at- 
torney, John R. Fellows, with the justified presentiment 
that he would waste little energy in pursuing political 
thieves. Grant and Fellows were elected. 

As the Congressional elections of 1890 drew near it 
became apparent that the administration party had com- 
mitted its worst blunder since reconstruction in the 
passage of the McKinley tariff bill. 

The country had been warned that some such measure 
might follow Republican success. The Republican plat- 
form of 1888 had upheld high protection even to declaring 
that the party would make such revisions as would 
'Hend to check imports" and thus reduce income, and 
would repeal all internal-revenue taxes, including those 
on whisky and tobacco, rather than '^surrender any part 
of our protective system." 

The McKinley bill did not proceed to this extreme. 
But it did remove the tariff on sugar and substitute a 
bounty of two cents a pound. By this measure the 
Republicans demonstrated that the tariff is a tax, paid 
by the consumer, and turned the surplus into a deficit, 
with some aid from extravagant expenditures in the 
Pension Office and elsewhere. 

To soften public anger at the McKinley bill, which he 
denounced as failing to open a market abroad for one 
bushel of American wheat or one pound of American 
pork, Mr. Blaine sought to inject into the measure during 
discussion provisions for reciprocity treaties with nations 



ti 



THE SHOPPING WOMAN^^ 73 



willing to frame preferential tariffs. President Harrison 
was less ardent in admiration of a bill which was to 
provide him with a rival and a successor than were the 
high-tariff men, intent upon the privileges they had paid 
for with campaign contributions. He became convinced 
that Blaine was right and added his persuasions. In the 
end the reciprocity provisions were accepted. 

Blaine reciprocity never lowered the cost of living or 
forced a market abroad for any considerable American 
product. In accepting it the '^stand-patters'' reasoned 
that it would be easier to negotiate reciprocal treaties 
than to secure their ratification. Though some treaties 
of minor consequence were concluded under the McKinley 
bill, no important benefit was derived. At a later period 
a familiar comedy was presented by the Hon. John A. 
Kasson negotiating reciprocity treaties under the Dingley 
Act, and the Senate uniformly refusing to sanction them. 

A '' centennial of protection" was closing as the McKin- 
ley bill was drafted. The tariff indorsed by Washington 
had averaged eight per cent, upon a limited range of 
articles. The World said: 

At the end of a hundred years the revenue produced by the 
tariff is $100,000,000 in excess of the needs of the Government. 
And the coddled infants of that early day, grown into stalwart 
and hoary monopolies, are exacting a tariff of 47 per cent., or 
almost six times as much as was required to ''protect" them a 
hundred years ago. 

More inauspicious occasion for increasing protection 

could not have been selected. A world-wide financial 

depression was approaching. The failure of Baring 

Brothers at the end of 1890, with liabilities of one hundred 

and fifteen million dollars, in part assumed by the Bank 

of England and other institutions to avert a crash, was 

its beginning, though it did not reach full development 

until 1893. At such a time a higher tariff could not be 
6 



74 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

followed by the heightened prosperity which alone could 
make the public tolerant of its exactions. 

Nevertheless, the Republicans ^^practically decreed 
that their proposed tariff bill shall not be discussed, but 
shall be passed with only a show of debate. Their judg- 
ment in this matter is perfectly sound. The McKinley 
bill will not bear looking in the face. It is a measure de- 
signed to embarrass and restrain trade; to make favored 
individuals rich at the expense of the mass of the people." 
Both before and after the passage of the bill on October 
1, 1890, The World continued to drive home the lesson: 

Mr. McKinley and his fellow-partisans have accomplished 
what Mr. Mills and Speaker Carlisle failed to do; they have 
completely united the Democratic party in favor of tax reduc- 
tion through tariff reform. 

Only a few days ago a Democratic successor to Samuel J. 
T. Randall was elected upon a platform favoring ''free raw 
materials" and a reduction in duties. Mr. Vaux holds that 
''a tariff is a tax," and declares that ''the favored class of 
monopolists to-day does not amount to one thousand individuals 
who are the immediate beneficiaries of the tax for protection, 
while the fifty million consumers suffer the burden of paying 
the tax." — June, 6, 1890. 

Mr. McKinley, in eulogizing his tariff law, said: "We have 
looked after our own. That is the sum of our offense." Whom 
did Mr. McKinley mean by "our own"? Not the wage- 
earner, for since the passage of the act that bears his name 
wages^^have gone down. Not the consumer, for the cost of much 
that he consumes has gone up. — June 19, 1891. 

Mr. Niedringhaus, who has made some tin-plate for cam- 
paign emblems, has declined to pay the wages asked by the 
Amalgamated Metal Workers, and meets their strike with a 
request to the Government to allow him to import Welshmen 
to man his works. — August 4, 1891. 

While The World thus lashed the McKinley tariff, with 
evidence of popular appreciation, it neglected no issue that 



''THE SHOPPING WOMAN'' 75^ 

could aid the general result. It assailed the " Czarism" 
of Speaker Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, whose changes in 
the rules of the House did much to hasten legislative 
action, and sometimes the play of the brute force of a 
majority. It denounced the corruption employed by the 
Republicans. It repeated again and again the words of 
William W. Dudley in 1888: 

Divide the floaters into blocks of five, and put a trusted man 
with necessary funds in charge of those five, and make him respon- 
sible that none gets away and that all vote our ticket. 

When the votes of 1890 were counted The World was 
able to rejoice that ^^The people have fittingly rebuked 
the partnership with monopoly and plutocracy into 
which the Republican party has forced the Government." 
The House was again Democratic. New York State had 
gone Democratic for the eighth successive time. McKin- 
ley was beaten in Ohio. Oregon had elected, in June, 
a Democratic governor. Massachusetts chose as gov- 
ernor that promising young Democrat, William E. Rus- 
sell, but for whose untimely death the course of American 
politics might have run differently. Rhode Island, New 
Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ne- 
braska, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were Democratic 
upon state tickets; Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Minnesota, and 
New Hampshire were close. Upon popular vote for 
Representatives the Democrats had a plurality of eight 
hundred thousand. 

For such an amazing overturn there was more than 
one reason. The policy of "spending the surplus," in 
effect announced in President Harrison's message, and 
the corruption of the "fat-frying" agents of protected 
interests had much to do with the result. But the chief 
cause of the revolt was the McKinley Act. 

In explaining his party's crushing defeat after the elec- 
tion Speaker Reed said "The Shopping Woman did it." 



76 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

In the following year there was no marked receding of the 
wave of indignation. The World in July, 1891, stated the 
issues of the state campaigns to be ^Hhe sixty-per-cent. 
monopoly tariff, the extravagance of the billion-dollar 
Congress, and the conspiracy against home rule and free 
elections embodied in the Force and Fraud bill/' The 
country again spoke with emphasis. There were no 
federal elections, and in many states no candidacies of 
general interest, but Iowa remained Democratic and 
Massachusetts re-elected Russell; while in New York 
the re-election of Governor Hill was of national im- 
portance. For the first time he had the Legislature with 
him. In spite of the maintenance of rotten boroughs by 
denial of reapportionment the state Senate was Demo- 
cratic. To this result, with a majority for Hill of forty- 
eight thousand, an amusing incident had contributed. 

J. Sloat Fassett, Hill's opponent for Governor, was 
speaking in Germania Hall, New York City, on the night 
of October 20th. The room was intensely hot. To 
quote from The World: 

''I wish I could take off my coat/' said Mr. Fassett. 

''Take it off! Take it off!" shouted the audience, and Mr. 
Fassett did take it off. Chairman Eidmann, fearing that Mr. 
Fassett might be dry, offered him a glass of water. 

"None of that for me," said Fassett. This caught the audi- 
ence again in the right spot. 

The incident cost Fassett many votes, and his party, 
perhaps, the Senate. 

So the scene was set for 1892. The country was in 
revolt against privilege. But for a single cloud upon the 
horizon there was reason to anticipate a complete Demo- 
cratic victory. 

That cloud was the silver question. 

Silver, which for two centuries had ruled in price as 
fifteen or sixteen to one, in weight of gold, had been 



''THE SHOPPING WOMAN'' 77 

'^ demonetized" in 1873 by the cessation of coinage, 
except for fractional currency. The silver men sought 
in the Bland Act of 1878 to provide for unlimited free 
coinage of silver, but the act as passed limited coinage to 
two million dollars a month for government account. 
This law was replaced in 1890 by the Sherman Act, which 
required the Treasury to buy four million five hundred 
thousand ounces of silver a month and issue against it 
bullion certificates. But silver advocates had not ceased 
to demand unlimited coinage at sixteen to one, and both 
parties coquetted with them. Mr. Bland was a Demo- 
crat; Mr. Sherman was a Republican. William McKin- 
ley, who was afterward to be a successful candidate upon 
a sound-money platform, ran for Governor of Ohio in 
1891 upon this statement of his position with regard to 
silver: 

The silver dollar now issued under a limited coinage has eighty 
cents of intrinsic value in it, so accredited the world over, and the 
other twenty cents is legislative will — the mere breath of Congress. 
That is, what the dollar lacks of value to make it a perfect dollar 
Congress supphes by pubhc declaration and holds the extra twenty 
cents in the Treasury for its protection. 

It would not be uncharitable to conclude that Mr. 
McKinley's opinions upon the silver question were at 
that time hazy. 

The World nailed him to the policy of the RepubHcan 
administration and denounced the Sherman Act as in- 
troducing into our legislation 'Hhe false and dangerous 
theory that it is the business of the Government to main- 
tain the price of a commodity by compulsory purchase of 
it — a theory which has already borne fruit in a series of 
wild warehouse proposals of a socialistic sort.'' 

In its desire to see taxation reduced, economy enforced, 
and corruption checked in the federal government The 
World was anxious to guide its party away from rash 



78 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

action upon silver. It favored an international monetary- 
conference upon bimetallism, expecting no result except 
delay. It urged moderation upon both factions. For 
the time such efforts succeeded. The tariff again led 
among issues in 1892. 

Then the demand for a debased currency returned to 
plague American politics for years and to delay atten- 
tion to the need of a progressive policy upon the tariff 
and the trusts. 



VII 

DAVID B. HILL 

1891-1892 

Mr. HilVs Election as Senator — His Long Tenure of the Governorship — 
Disputes Cleveland's Standing as "Favorite Son" of New York — The 
Snap Convention — "The World" Forces Cleveland's Nomination — Its 
Course During the Homestead Strike — An Incident of Editing at a Dis- 
tance — Blaine and Chili; His Retirement — " The Next President Must Be 
a Democrat" — Chairman HackeiVs Search for "Discreet" Men — Cleve- 
land's Election and Its Lessons. 

Since Daniel Tompkins and George Clinton no Gov- 
ernor has served New York so long as David Bennett 
Hill. 

Elected Lieutenant-Governor with Mr. Cleveland, Hill 
finished his unexpired term and was twice re-elected for 
three-year periods. Chosen Senator in 1891, he remained 
in the Governor's chair until the assembling of Congress. 

Mr. Hill was an able man, a skilled political manager, an 
excellent Governor. Circumstances made him the natural 
successor of Robinson, Tilden, and Cleveland as a leader 
of up-state men and a check upon Tammany. He cared 
little for money, though he philosophically accepted the 
greed of others as a fact with which a practical politician 
must deal. No instance of profiting by a dishonest act 
was brought home to him, unless his acceptance of a 
lawyer's retainer from an insurance company seeking 
political complaisance merits that description. He pre- 
ferred working by conclave and cabal. He never learned 
the lesson, taught by Cleveland and Hughes and Wilson, 
of appealing to the people over the heads of politicians. 



80 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

A better reading of public opinion would have saved him 
the blunder of the ^'snap convention'^ of 1892. 

With Cleveland beaten in 1888, Hill carried to the 
Senate a debatable title as the ^'favorite son of a pivotal 
state." He had a clear-cut tariff policy which was 
practically that pursued by the Underwood Democrats in 
1911. Said The World, describing it: 

If the House passes a bill to put binding-twine upon the free 
list; another to do the same for the hoop-iron with which 
farmers bind their hay and cotton; others to free from tax 
wool, iron ores, tin-plate, and other raw materials of manu- 
facture; others to remove the compensatory duties placed upon 
woolen fabrics and other manufactured articles, as an offset 
to the duties on raw materials, the Senate will meditate a long 
time before assuming the risk of denying to the people these 
concrete measures of relief. 

It seemed in a man so near greatness an amazing blunder 
when Senator Hill, desiring to profit by conditions so 
promising of Democratic success, planned early in 1892 
to call the state convention on Washington's Birthday, and 
at that unprecedented date to select New York's delegates 
to the Chicago convention. The World warned him in 
emphatic language, ^^ Don't!" ^^We understand," it 
said, "that this day has been definitely decided upon by 
yourself and your friends after most careful consideration. 
We do not expect that you will change it. But we do say 
plainly and emphatically that you ought to do so." 

Two weeks before the snap convention The World 
again warned Hill of what was to happen: "Don't over- 
look forty-three other States while seizing your own." 
A month after the convention it reminded him that the 
result of his active personal campaign had "revived Mr. 
Cleveland as a sentimental possibility in the face of Mr. 
Hill's unanimous State Committee, unanimous State Con- 
vention, unanimous delegation, the apparent unanimity 



DAVID B. HILL 81 

of nearly all Democratic politicians and office-holders in 
New York, and the seeming impossibility that Mr. Cleve- 
land can carry the State under such extraordinary circum- 
stances." But Mr. Hill was far from being disquieted. 
He mismeasured political forces by counting delegates and 
estimating combinations of leaders. 

In fact, he played The World's cards. The newspaper 
regarded Cleveland as the logical candidate on a tariff- 
reform platform, but doubted how the country would 
view his chances in New York with his party divided and 
his prestige broken by 1888. Hill's act convinced the 
country that, if such desperate measures were necessary 
to oppose a rival, that rival's strength must be formidable. 
Also, it inspired doubts whether Hill himself was of 
Presidential stature. In the end The World was able 
to pronounce him "an impossible candidate.'' And 
where in February, taking stock of the Democratic ma- 
terial, it had enumerated Gov. Horace Boies of Iowa, 
Gov. Robert E. Pattison of Pennsylvania, Senator John 
M. Palmer of Illinois, Senator John G. Carlisle of Ken- 
tucky, Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller, Senator Arthur 
P. Gorman of Maryland, Gov. William E. Russell of 
Massachusetts, Gov. Isaac P. Gray of Delaware, and 
Gov. Leon Abbett of New Jersey. as Presidential ma- 
terial, by June 10th it could announce that "the great 
majority of the Democrats of the Union" seemed to pre- 
fer Mr. Cleveland. A month before the convention, 
which assembled unusually late in July, it assured the 
country that Mr. Cleveland "can carry it [New York] if 
any Democrat can. He is stronger in this State than any 
other man who is named." And the next day: 

If the Convention shall have the courage of its preference 
and nominate Mr. Cleveland, The World believes that he will 
have the largest vote ever cast for a Democratic candidate in 
this State. 



82 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

We said this in 1884, and the election sustained our opinion. 
We did not say it in 1888 because the circumstances did not 
warrant it. We say it now to reassure any with whom doubt 
may linger at Chicago. 

Cleveland can win. 

Owing to ill health, Mr. Pulitzer was not in the country, 
but his position was well understood ; and he had in charge 
of the editorial page the late WiUiam Henry Merrill, a 
man fully capable of impressing it upon the Democracy 
in Chicago that the candidate favored by the seventy-two 
delegates of New York, voting under the unit rule, was not 
the choice of the voters. How anxiously the paper was 
watched in Chicago, and what use the Cleveland men 
made of its smashing blows, is an inseparable part of the 
story of that brief and, on the surface, eventless gathering. 

The paramount service The World rendered Mr. 
Cleveland in 1884 was in compelling his success at the 
polls by a narrow margin. Its previous work in con- 
vincing the convention that New York, like General 
Bragg, *4oved him most for the enemies he had made" 
was secondary. 

In 1892 the conditions were reversed. Perhaps any 
strong Democratic ticket would have won. The tran- 
scendant service rendered that year by The World was 
its heartening of Cleveland sentiment in the nominating 
body. The convention could not ignore such assurances 
as this, coming on the eve of its assembling from the 
columns of the great independent Democratic spokesman 
of the rank and file: 

Mr. Cleveland is not a new and untried man. He was 
President for four years. He was under the searchlight 
during a second campaign. He has been before the public, in 
letter or speech, many times since his defeat. The people 
know him — his faults as well as his virtues. If they want him, 
why shouldn't they have him? 



DAVID B. HILL 83 

Are seventy-two delegates, elected last winter under snap 
rules, more sure to know the strength of a candidate than 
seven hundred delegates chosen at proper times, in proper 
ways, and assembled in June? 

Democracy should be Democratic. . . . 

To say that Mr. Cleveland would not be a strong candidate 
is to say that the Democracy does not prize honesty, sincerity, 
and courage. It is to say that the cause of tariff reform and 
honest and economical government, which triumphed greatly 
in the elections of 1890 and again last year, is not strong 
enough to elect its most conspicuous champion. Can a party 
that is afraid of its principles win? Does it deserve to 
win? 

The World believes that the Democracy is strong enough to 
elect its first choice for President and that its first choice is 
stronger than any other would be. 

HilFs snap convention failed of its purpose. He re- 
ceived but forty-two votes in the convention besides the 
seventy-two from New York. In that manner began 
The WorWs disagreement with Mr. Hill that lasted, with 
one brief truce, to the end of his career. 

Just previous to the national convention had come 
one of the instances where the absence of Mr. Pulitzer 
affected the conduct of the paper in a crisis. 

In the strike of the Carnegie workmen at Homestead, 
Pennsylvania, the country had an example of the ^^ bene- 
fits to American labor" of the McKinley bill, and The 
World proceeded to improve it: 

Under the McKinley Act the people are paying taxes of 
nearly $20,000,000 and a much larger sum in bounties to 
Carnegie, Phipps & Co., and their fellows, for the alleged 
purpose of benefiting the wage-earners. And yet there is war 
at the Homestead works, and the employers have enlisted 
Pinkerton Hessians and fortified their property in order that 
they may pour scalding water on their discharged workmen if 
an attack is made upon them. — July 1st. 



84 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Is it right that a private detective agency shall maintain a 
standing army, a thing forbidden even to the several States of 
the Union? Is it well that a body of armed mercenaries shall 
be held thus at the service of whomsoever has money with which 
to hire them? — July 2d. 

If force must be used to sustain the beneficiaries of protection 
in reducing wages and breaking down labor organizations it is 
better that it should be the citizen soldiery of the State, for 
the workmen will not resist them. — July 11th, 

There was nothing incendiary in this, nothing untrue. 
Provocation to plain speech was never greater. But a 
note that readers had learned to look for in The WorMs 
columns was lacking. 

The World had never from its first day been a sensational 
paper. It had sought by every means to arrest attention, 
and it had been labeled sensational by rivals for sur- 
passing them in initiative, originality, and success. But 
it had never played for popularity by muddling a question 
of morals. 

Now in its editorial treatment of the Homestead 
crisis, taken with the presentation of the news, there was 
sensationalism. Here was a grave condition in which the 
supreme claims of order were to be enforced at all hazards 
upon workmen maddened by the blood of their seven 
dead, upon employers resolved to refuse compromise. 
Was The World to neglect the teaching that the public 
interest was paramount to private war? 

Between July 11th and July 12th something happened 
in The World editorial rooms. The leading article of 
July 12th bears evidence of Mr. Pulitzer's personal touch. 
This was the burden of it : 

There is but one thing for the locked-out men to do. They 
must submit to the law. They must keep the peace. Their 
quarrel is with their employers. They must not make it a 
quarrel with organized society. It is a protest against wage 



DAVID B. HILL 85 

reduction. It must not be made a revolt against law and order. 
They must not resist the authority of the State. They must 
not make war upon the community. 

There was no retraction of what had been said. The 
helmsman had nodded; the ship had veered. She was 
set right again, and went on. The World did not cease 
to score Mr. Frick for preferring to ^'appeal to Pinkerton 
rather than to the lawful officers of his State.'' It did 
not cease to hold up the lesson of this failure of the 
McKinley law to make protected working-men prosperous 
and contented. But it did not again forget to uphold the 
general interest in peace. 

This is what had happened: 

Mr. Pulitzer was in Paris, ill and suffering, when the 
Homestead trouble broke. His first thought was for 
The World. When day by day the accounts in the London 
journals grew more grave he had quotations from his paper 
sent to him by cable. At receipt of them he was horrified 
and incensed. Emotional by nature, strong in his sym- 
pathies with working-men, harassed by his inability more 
closely to direct his papers, he suffered one of the worst 
crises of his long illness. 

One of The World editors who was with him tried to 
reassure him by saying that the trouble was perhaps 
exaggerated. 

''There have been as many men killed and wounded in 
this labor war as in many a South American revolution," 
he said; and the wires grew hot with orders which re- 
versed the editorial policy of The World, Some phrases 
from his cablegrams appear in the article just quoted. 

Against men who blundered, as in this case, Mr. 
Pulitzer commonly cherished no resentment. He pre- 
ferred a man who erred strongly, taking his own line in 
an emergency, to an irresolute one. Lack of courage in 
assuming responsibility was the fault he could not forgive. 



86 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

The early part of 1892 was a busy time for The World. 
Late in 1891 a row had occurred in the drinking-houses 
of Valparaiso between United States navy men and 
Chilians, in which one of the former was killed and 
several were hurt. The Administration on October 26th 
made a demand upon Chili for reparation. By the new 
year the situation was acute. President Harrison was 
inclined to see a political asset in a vigorous attitude. Mr. 
Blaine, though he had erred in sending the fiery Patrick 
Egan as Minister to Chili, sought to compose the difficulty. 
So The World had again to speak of him as ^Hhe mitiga- 
tion of this administration." To the talk of war prepara- 
tions it opposed a cool common sense : 

Preparations for what? For war with Chili. Indeed! And 
why? 

Because, forsooth, a few United States sailors and a few 
Valparaiso policemen could not agree upon a fitting color for 
the town. We said red. They said blue. The result was a 
compromise on blue. It was their town. 

When late in January the pacific bearing of Chili 
promised a prompt settlement of the dispute The World 
found in Mr. Blaine's ^interference'' the protest of reason 
against a policy of bluster, leading to needless and dis- 
honorable war. "The sober judgment and the en- 
lightened patriotism of the country" were behind Mr. 
Blaine, and would welcome such "interference" to save 
us from "the calamity of war and the shame of arrogant 
wrong-doing." 

There was even then the coal conspiracy to rob New 
York, and The World in 1892 fought it as it did later. 
The Cceur d'Alene strike in the West and the railroad 
strikes in Buffalo, to which Governor Flower sent militia, 
kept the people's temper at boiling-point. In March an 
attempt was made by Boss Croker of Tammany to take 
from the west side of Central Park a strip of land for a 



DAVID B. HILL 87 

'^speedway/' such a semi-private race-course for trotting- 
horse owners as now disfigures the western bank of the 
Harlem. A bill providing for this vandalism was rail- 
roaded through the Legislature and signed by Governor 
Flower. The World, focusing an instant storm of public 
anger upon the job, compelled a repeal. 

With late summer came a cholera scare, the latest of 
any consequence in New York. Possibilities of trouble 
were shown in Hamburg, where eighty-five hundred 
people died. In New York The World took the occasion 
to secure some improvement in local sanitation. Gov- 
ernor Flower bought a landing-station upon Fire Island 
to quarantine arrivals by steamship. The embattled 
farmers and oystermen of Long Island gathered with 
pitchforks, fowling-guns, and clubs to prevent American 
citizens from stepping on the soil of their own country, 
and there was an exhibition of silly panic which it is not 
pleasant to remember. 

But the chief interest of 1892 was its political revolution. 
In June, 1891, two events had put an end to Blaine's hopes 
for the Presidency. The first was his own recurring 
illness, which drove him to a long rest at Bar Harbor. 
The second was President Harrison's ''swinging round the 
circle" with a series of public addresses which revealed 
him as one of the ablest men of his party and strengthened 
his following. On January 7th Mr. Blaine had again 
withdrawn his name from consideration as a candidate, 
but his friends refused to consider his declination final, 
and, with a devotion comparable to that of the Stalwart 
three hundred and six for Grant in 1880, Piatt, Quay, and 
others carried the fight to the Minneapolis convention, 
where 1823^ votes were cast for Blaine and 182 for the 
permanent chairman, that more favored man of destiny, 
William McKinley. But Harrison was an easy winner. 
Blaine had resigned from the cabinet on June 4th. Thus 
closed his public activities. 



88 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

On the heels of the McKinley bill had come financial 
troubles. Between the signing of the bill in October, 
1890, and July 20, 1892, four hundred strikes against wage 
reductions were listed by The World. To make its posi- 
tion clear for the campaign the Democratic House passed 
bills putting wool, binding-twine, and cotton ties on the 
free list, and these had been killed in the Republican 
Senate. The silver question had been by tacit consent 
relegated to the rear when Great Britain consented to an 
international conference upon bimetallism, which later 
adjourned without result. Extravagance had been no- 
torious in the effort to spend the surplus without reducing 
taxation. Green B. Raum, who as Pension Commissioner 
had succeeded to Corporal Tanner and his cry of ^^God 
help the surplus!" had proved almost as '^generous to the 
veterans.'^ He estimated the pension expenditure for 
1892 at one hundred and eighty million dollars, a sum 
never reached until 1913. 

No one who followed Mr. Cleveland's second successful 
campaign for the Presidency is likely to forget the fight 
The World made for him. It had confidence in his success, 
as it had not had in 1888. It had four years of growth 
in strength and concentration. On June 12th it sum- 
marized the grounds of the contest: 

The next President must be a Democrat. No more Force bills. 

The next President must be a Democrat. No perpetual war taxes. 

The next President must be a Democrat. No more billion- 
dollarism. 

The next President must be a Democrat. No more Wana- 
makerism in the Cabinet or Woodses on the bench. 

The next President must be a Democrat. No everlasting 
tariff for monopoHes only. 

The next President must be a Democrat. No more bounties 
or subsidies to favored classes. 

The next President must be a Democrat. No more minority 
rule. 



DAVID B. HILL 89 

Throughout the campaign The World continued to in- 
sist upon its text. It early pointed out that Cleveland's 
chances of winning electors in the West were by no means 
chimerical. To advertise this fact, rather than for the 
financial aid it rendered, it began the collection of a 
Western campaign fund. This undertaking gave the 
chance for pointing some contrasts : 

The Western Democratic Campaign Fimd is not a Wanamaker 
fund. [Alluding to the money raised by Mr. Wanamaker in 
1888, for which he was rewarded with a place in Harrison's 
Cabinet.] ! 

It does not represent the campaign blackmail levied on favored 
plutocrats to perpetuate plutocratic legislation. 

It is not an exaction wrung from office-holders in violation 
of the Civil Service law. 

It does not appeal to the instincts of greed to swell the 
resources of venality. 

It will not place in the hands of Quays and Dudleys the means 
of thwarting the will of the people. 

And there was this further contrast — ^publicity. The 
people knew how much money The World raised, and for 
what. They did not know, they do not yet know, how- 
much was raised by the Quays and the Dudleys. The 
activity of vote-buyers in the campaign was reserved 
for the closing smash of many an editorial, like this 
of October 2d: 

The Republican record includes: 

A squandered surplus of $100,000,000. 

A worse than war tariff. 

Increased taxes. 

The multiplication of monopolies. 

The menace of a Force bill. 

Inflation with 65-cent dollars. 

State-steahng and seat-grabbing. 

The protection of Republican rascals. 



90 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

A carnival of spoils. 
Renomination by office-holders. 

As a fitting climax the record is crowned with a bold attempt 
to carry the election by bribery and fraud. 

Much use was made in the campaign of a tabulation of 
the strikes entered into since the passage of the McKinley 
bill — strikes against reductions of wages in many cases. 
No more forceful description of the genesis of the McKin- 
ley bill could well be made than that of Charles J. Harrah, 
a Pennsylvania steel-maker, who wrote toward the close 
of the campaign: 

This tariff belongs to us; we bought it, we paid for it, and 
it is ours; we did not put up our money to increase the price 
of labor, to increase wages, and therefore we have not done it; 
we put up the money to buy the legislation we wanted, and 
we got it. It is ours; we bought it and paid for it, and that 
is the whole story. 

Mr. Harrah's ^'We bought it and paid for it" was 
sarcastic and repentant. In 1888 he had been for Har- 
rison; in 1892 he was for Cleveland. On November 3d 
he published in The World a letter worthy of preservation 
as an early recognition of how the nation-wide movement 
toward the trustification of industry received from the 
McKinley bill its tremendous impetus: 

The results of the enactment of the measure were soon felt. 
Over-protection begat over-production. Plants were built and 
started that the natural laws of trade and commerce did not 
call into existence, and the men who had been foolishly entering 
into these new enterprises in the hope of speedily realizing 
large fortunes were threatened with bankruptcy. It became 
apparent to them that something had to be done in order to 
save their investment. 

There were three courses for them to pursue. The first one, 
and the one which was most eminently successful, was that 



DAVID B. HILL 91 

adopted by the syndicate which bought up the sugar refineries 
and, by closing down those that were most expensive to operate, 
restricted the production, curtailed expenses, and was able to 
regulate the prices of production in such a manner that enor- 
mous fortunes were soon made for its members at the expense 
of the public in general. 

Mr. Harrah had given ten thousand dollars to the Harri- 
son fund in 1888, and was disquieted at the uses to which 
money had been put. There were evidences in the new 
campaign of the desperation to which the buyers of the 
previous victory had been reduced. One such was amus- 
ing. The World offered a prize of five hundred dollars 
for the best Cleveland campaign song. It was won by a 
clerk in a government office, but his name could not be 
given. The World explained : ^^ He would like the reward, 
but declines the fame. He holds office under the Repub- 
licans, and he thinks he cannot afford to wear the laurel 
crown." So the prize had to be paid privately through a 
well-known bank president. 

The place taken in 1888 by ''Blocks-of-Five" Dudley 
was filled in 1892 by a new figure in the limelight, Chair- 
man Hackett, of the executive committee of the Repub- 
lican National Committee, who sent to every post- 
master in New York a confidential letter asking the names 
of "from eight to twelve of the most active, earnest, dis- 
creet, and trustworthy young Republicans of each town." 
"Discretion and ability to keep a secret" were insisted 
upon in another passage. Day after day The World 
reprinted this damning document, with comment drawn 
from the history of past corruption. 

In the end the election turned upon public hatred of the 
McKinley bill, upon labor troubles which gave the lie to 
its promises of fostering the working-man, and upon 
manifold evidences of corruption. As The World sum- 
marized it after election "The corruption fund brought 
out the conscience vote." 



92 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

And what a victory! A popular plurality of 382,956 
was rolled up. Mr. Cleveland would have had sixty 
electoral majority even if New York had gone Republican, 
which it failed to do by the margin of 45,518. New Jersey 
and Connecticut, Indiana and Illinois, Wisconsin and 
California went for Cleveland, and he drew five district 
electoral votes from Michigan. One ludicrous result of 
the poll was ^'poetic justice in the gain of a Senator from 
Wyoming by the Democrats.'' This state was hustled 
into the Union to confirm the Republican grip upon the 
Senate. Now an unexpected Senator from Wyoming 
gave the Democrats the forty-four votes they needed to 
control the Upper House. 

And so there came again to the Presidency the man of 
whom at the beginning of the campaign The World had said : 

The secret of such a career is surely worth finding out. And 
it lies on the surface of the life-story told in The World to-day. 
Mr. Cleveland was never regarded as a man of exceptional 
ability before he was called to high place. But when the 
voters of New York made him Governor he accepted public 
office as a public trust, with a sincerity of mind rarely equaled. 
In office he put aside those considerations of poHcy which 
customarily govern even the most high-minded statesmen, 
and discharged every duty with sole reference to his convictions 
of right. He did many things that were sure to cost him votes 
in any subsequent candidacy he might enter upon. He did 
them with a sense of duty and with a courage and devotion 
truly admirable. He made mistakes, too, but they were 
mistakes of a sincere mind. 

Without retracting one word of this tribute The World 
was forced to offer to Mr. Cleveland within the next four 
years, in issues of vital importance, as strong opposition 
as he or any President ever received. Yet it was to re- 
tain its own high appreciation of Mr. Cleveland's qualities 
and his gratitude and friendship to the end of his great 
career. 



VIII 

REACTION 

1893-1895 

A Period of Disaster — The Panic of 1893 and Its Political Consequences — 
Hawaii, and the Beginnings of Imperialism — A Bought Embassy — The 
Betrayal of the Wilsoji Bill — John Y. McKane's Downfall in Gravesend 
— Hill Runs for Governor Again and Is Beaten — The Pullman Strike — 
Cleveland Sends Soldiers — Repuhlicans Sweep the Country in 1894 — 
The China- Japanese War — The Income Tax Declared Unconstitutional 
— Theodore Roosevelt, Police Commissioner, and the Short-Lived Reform 
in New York Under Mayor Strong, 

The second term of Grover Cleveland as President 
covers a period upon which few thoughtful Americans can 
look back without regret. It was a time when people, 
pricked by petty annoyances, nurtured giant wrongs for 
fresh growth; when angered by causes they attacked con- 
sequences; when in the chase of economic heresy they de- 
layed for almost twoscore years the initiative of reforms. 

The advance-guard of the panic of 1893 was the Baring 
failure at Christmas, 1890. The trouble was well under 
way before Harrison left the White House. It was has- 
tened by the failure of the Cordage Trust, an ordinary 
crime of swollen capitalization which attracted attention 
because it was managed by men prominent in New York 
society. The worst of the storm was spent while the 
McKinley tariff was still in force. It was much intensi- 
fied by the financial recklessness of the Silver Purchase 
Act, a Republican measure. Yet the beneficiaries of 
high protection succeeded in making many believe it a 



94 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Democratic panic. The labor troubles of 1893-95 height- 
ened discontent. Both parties coquetted with financial 
repudiation, and the party to which the country looked 
for federal reforms contracted with it a fatal mesalliance. 
A long record of defeat was to be the result. 

At the end of 1892 Mr. Blaine's plans for the acquisition 
of Hawaii matured; and, though he was no longer in the 
State Department, there was upon the spot a friend and 
neighbor to represent the United States along Blaine 
lines. Said The World February 10, 1893: 

As early as November 24th the Kennebec Journal, of Maine, 
of which our Minister Stevens at Honolulu is editor, contained 
an article foreshadowing the recent revolution in Hawaii. 

When the revolution occurred it happened, "by the merest 
accident in the world,'' that the man-of-war Boston was in 
the harbor. It also happened that as soon as the revolutionists 
thought proper to act our Minister Stevens stood ready to 
"recognize the provisional government," and the commander 
of the Boston was ready to land, and did land, several hundred 
marines and sailors, "armed cap-a-pie," who paraded the streets 
and "preserved order." 

The WorldJs criticism of the Blaine tactics in Hawaii 
is an early instance of its hostility to imperialism. It 
exposed and denounced the plot to complete a hurried 
annexation before Mr. Cleveland came into the White 
House, and sustained the new President in recalling the 
treaty with the provisional government and sending a 
"paramount commissioner," James H. Blount. Blount 
erred through over zeal, and was replaced. In the end the 
provisional government formed by the white residents of 
Honolulu was left in control until times more favorable 
to their project. The World opposed Mr. Cleveland's 
plan to turn the government over to Queen Liliuokalani 
and leave the white residents at the mercy of native 
revenge — procedure which was checked by the Turpie 



REACTION 95 

resolution. But it as strongly opposed annexation, for 
reasons which apply to later times and larger islands. 
Hawaii was of little use to us. It would be difficult 
to prevent it from falling into an enemy's hands. Its 
people were alien. There were few residents upon whom 
citizenship could be conferred. Its government would be 
^'a hard problem and a cause of scandals without end." 

The World was disappointed in Mr. Cleveland's Attor- 
ney-General, Richard Olney. The exploitation of the 
people through the McKinley bill by the Sugar Trust, 
and its notoriously watered capitalization, made it a 
conspicuous mark for government attack under the Anti- 
trust law; but Mr. Olney, though in some other cases he 
set about testing the Sherman Act, hesitated to attack 
the Sugar Trust. He even expressed after his retirement 
from office a guarded opinion that the law might be un- 
constitutional. A strike in June, 1893, among the ill- 
paid foreign workmen of the Havemeyer sugar-houses in 
Brooklyn gave opportunity for a sharp contrast of two 
kinds of lawlessness: 

Mr. Havemeyer's firemen and boilermen work under inhuman 
conditions for twelve hours in twenty-four. 

They very respectfully asked him to reduce their hours in 
consideration of the cruel and dangerous conditions. 

Mr. Havemeyer refused to heed the demand of humanity, 
lest all the other refineries in the Sugar Trust should be com- 
pelled to conform to a rule of justice which costs money. 

Then he sent for the police, in order that the trust might 
have the strong protection of the law for its pecuniary interests, 
although there was no menace or suggestion of violence. 

But how admirable was Mr. Havemeyer's assurance in thus 
invoking the law quite as any law-abiding citizen might! He 
knows that this Sugar Trust of his is a lawless, criminal con- 
spiracy, denounced as such by both Federal and State statute. 
He knows that its very existence is a crime, and that the only 
reason those who maintain it were not long ago brought to 
trial for their offense is that there has been an era of inefficiency 



96 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

and neglect in the Attorney-GeneraFs office, during which only 
those criminals who wear shabby clothes and have no social 
position have been prosecuted. 

The next time a green-goods gang gets into difficulty, by all 
means let its manager send for the police. 

It was in these disappointing years that The World 
began its long campaign to end the floggings inflicted by 
Superintendent Z. R. Brockway in the Elmira Reforma- 
tory, where in five years 19,497 blows were struck; not 
until Theodore Roosevelt became Governor, however, was 
Brockway ousted. The World urged rapid transit with 
its well-remembered insistence upon ^^ Fifteen Minutes to 
Harlem,'' and pushed the consolidation of New York in 
the face of the bitter opposition of the McLaughlin Ring 
and of many Brooklyn property-owners. Its disclosures 
of the relations of the police to vice and crime forced the 
Lexow investigation which produced great, if temporary, 
benefits. It urged to passage the tenement-house law, 
which it has since defended against the greed that seeks 
to destroy it by amendment so that houses and human 
lives may be cheaper. 

An instance of the influence of a newspaper in com- 
pelling a high type of diplomatic appointments was the 
Van Alen case, which in its time made some noise. 

James J. Van Alen was a very wealthy man, a son-in- 
law of Mrs. Astor, a resident of Newport, undistinguished 
in public affairs, in which he had taken no part until the 
1892 campaign, when he gave a large sum to the Cleveland 
fund with the understanding that he was to ^'have some- 
thing." He chose the ministry to Rome, and was ap- 
pointed. The selection was no worse than that of Wil- 
liam Waldorf Astor for the same post by Arthur in 1882 
or of Morton as Minister to Paris by Garfield. How- 
ever, The World denounced it as '^an affront to all pa- 
triotic citizens." It called attention to Van Alen's lack 
of '' public service or prominence earned." It brought 



REACTION 97 

out the fact that he gave a large sum to the Democratic 
National Committee in expectation of appointment — "a. 
fact which he has himself repeatedly stated with a frank- 
ness more ingenuous than diplomatic/' Mr. Van Alen 
was confirmed by the Senate which was soon afterward to 
reject New York appointments of higher grade on lower 
motives, but, disgusted by the storm that had been raised, 
he soon resigned the post. 

The country was now ripe for tariff legislation, and 
Mr. Cleveland called a special session of Congress August 
7, 1893, for that purpose. The House, which chose 
Charles F. Crisp as Speaker and William L. Wilson as 
Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, did its work 
promptly and well. With the provisions of the Wilson 
bill The World was well satisfied. ^^It is a higher tariff 
than the Morrill tariff of 1862. It is nearly as high as the 
tariff of 1883. It is a less average reduction of a 50-per- 
cent, tariff than the Republican Tariff Commission of 
1882 recommended in a 40-per-cent. tariff.'' It was, in 
short, a compromise such as The World had urged between 
the extreme positions of theoretical free trade and con- 
fiscatory taxation; such a tariff as moderate men still 
desire. 

This ^'reconstructive, not destructive" bill the Senate 
proceeded to destroy by amendment, greatly increasing 
protection. Senators Gorman of Maryland, Smith of New 
Jersey, Brice of Ohio, and others, all representatives of 
highly protected interests, accomplished this ruin. With 
them were associated Senator Hill, who opposed the 
income-tax feature of the bill, and Senator Edward 
Murphy, of Troy, who represented collars and cuffs, and 
who had been elected Senator against The World's pro- 
tests for his services as a collector of campaign funds. 

A long deadlock ensued. The World, seeing how the 
political tide was running against the party, advised that 
"When the Democrats of the House are satisfied that it 



98 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

is 'the Senate bill or nothing' they should agree to the 
Senate bill and end the contest." 

This view was taken. The conference bill was passed 
upon Gorman lines, and President Cleveland contemptu- 
ously allowed it to become a law without his signa- 
ture. Though he branded its treatment in the Senate as 
"party perfidy and dishonor/' and wrote to Representa- 
tive Catchings, of Mississippi, that the "livery of Demo- 
cratic reform has been stolen and worn in the service of 
Republican protection," he considered it far better than 
the McKinley Act. The World also found it "a vast 
improvement in most particulars upon the McKinley 
law," and vainly hoped it would "give the country tem- 
porary peace at least." 

In the thick of the tariff fight occurred the campaign 
of 1893, an off-year, but distinguished in New York State 
by an exhibition of independence which showed how The 
World's doctrine of revolt against bossism had gained in 
ten years. In winning his own senatorship and providing 
an echo in Edward Murphy, Hill had stepped down from 
his vantage as state leader, and had formed with Boss 
Richard Croker of New York, Boss Hugh McLaughlin 
of Brooklyn, and Boss William F. Sheehan of Buffalo a 
"big-four" combination. One of its fruits was the nomi- 
nation in 1893 of Isaac H. Maynard as Judge of the 
Court of Appeals. 

Maynard had been guilty of a political trick for the 
benefit of his party machine which the bosses thought 
worthy of reward, but which the State Bar Association 
pointed out was frowned upon by the penal code. The 
World made a hot campaign against Maynard and saw 
him beaten by one hundred and one thousand votes. 
Everything favored the revolution. The Legislature 
had made a bad record. Murphy's election had dis- 
gusted the people. At Sheehan's behest "ripper" bills 
had been passed to enhance his power over Buffalo which 



REACTION 99 

so angered the people that his ticket was beaten by 
twelve thousand votes and the bills had to be repealed. 
And just before election the famous war of John Y. 
McKane, of Gravesend, against the courts turned Brook- 
lyn from a Democratic to a Republican city, replaced 
Boody by Schieren as Mayor, and affected many votes 
elsewhere. 

Gravesend had been laid out by Lady Deborah Moody, 
a royal grantee of early days, with radiating streets and 
farm lines to facilitate access and defense against Indians. 
Four central blocks contained the church, the school, the 
fold for cattle at night, and the houses of the forty farmers, 
each of whom could go upon his own land from the in- 
closing village road. Traces of the Moody street-plan 
are still visible about the site of the town-hall where 
McKane, builder by profession, Sunday-school superin- 
tendent, austere, and careful of speech, pursued his career 
of crime. 

Coney Island had been reserved by Lady Deborah as 
common lands, but the town officials were not prevented 
from alienating it, and the sale and lease of these lands 
provided the means of political debauchment, while semi- 
nomadic stable-boys, barkeepers, and other handy fellows 
furnished McKane's guerrillas. All the election districts 
voted in the town-hall. Lady Deborah's concentric plan 
favoring this convenience. In 1890 Gravesend had 8,414 
inhabitants. It cast in 1892 3,286 votes. In 1893 
it registered 6,218 names — a warning of fraud which 
stirred reformers to action. In this campaign William 
J. Gaynor, then a young attorney of Brooklyn, was con- 
spicuous. Of him The World said, on November 21st: 
^'Mr. Gaynor, of Brooklyn, goes to work in the right 
way. He has procured a copy of the registration lists of 
Gravesend. He has employed men to inspect every 
doubtful case, and in every instance of apparent false 
registration he will ask the Supreme Court to cancel 



100 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

it." What happened to the men from Brooklyn is thus 
told in a World editorial: 

John Y. McKane and his heelers have taken the law into 
their own hands and done what they pleased with it. They 
have defied the peremptory writs of the Supreme Court. They 
have seized peaceable citizens, engaged in executing a court 
order, taken their property from their persons, and lodged them 
in jail. 

A judicial officer under McKane's control has refused bail 
for these men as if they were accused of murder, and locked 
them up with as high-handed a disregard of law as any agent 
of the Russian Third Section ever showed. 

Yet so silly was the Democratic ring that even after 
the election, when McKane was under sentence of thirty 
days and under eleven indictments which were to land him 
in Sing Sing, the board of supervisors elected him presi- 
dent. The district attorney, James W. Ridgway, having 
no stomach for trying McKane, Governor Flower named 
the late Edward M. Shepard and George C. Reynolds as 
special deputies of the Attorney-General. 

Far out of proportion to the size of his district McKane 
made political history. In comment upon him and the 
fall of Maynard The World summed up its philosophy: 
''Discipline is as necessary to parties as to individuals. 
The Democratic leaders of New York invited it. It is 
to be hoped that they will profit by it." 

For 1894 Democratic prospects were unfavorable. 
''No party," as The World pointed out, "has ever won on 
a general revision of the tariff, taking effect shortly before 
the election. The country feels the evil effects of uncer- 
tainty without time to get the good results of the change." 

Yet Senator Hill took this unpromising occasion to 
tempt fate by running again for Governor. Admiration 
was compelled by his courage in facing such chances of 
defeat. The World sought to be fair to Senator Hill. 



REACTION 101 

"He has had/^ it said, ''eight years' experience as Gov- 
ernor, and, whatever his methods, he made surprisingly 
few serious mistakes in that office. When Hill was 
Governor he was the master of the lesser bosses, not their 
tool, as Flower has been. There were no extravagant or 
corrupt appropriations, no Huckleberry jobs [referring to 
the street-railway franchises in the Bronx region] or 
Sheehanized encroachments on local self-government un- 
der his rule. Though a strict and not overscrupulous 
partisan, his administration was clean." 

Never were circumstances more untoward for a party. 
In July of that terrible year the great railroad strike, 
originating in Pullman, Illinois, had paralyzed the trans- 
portation service of the country, blocked commerce, and 
threatened wholesale destruction of property. The pas- 
sage of the mails was interrupted, and the President 
called out federal troops to guard conamunications so 
that they might be moved. This act won for him the 
hatred of many labor-union men and is still remem- 
bered with bitterness. An incident of the strike of lasting 
importance was the arrest and imprisonment of Eugene 
V. Debs for violation of an injunction of a federal court, 
forbidding him to interfere with interstate traffic. This 
was the real beginning of the ''government by injunction '^ 
issue and, more remotely, of the movement to exempt 
labor-unions and combinations of farmers and planters 
from the enforcement of the Anti-trust Act. It made 
Mr. Debs the candidate of the Socialist party for Presi- 
dent in four successive elections from 1900 to 1912. 

For Mr. Cleveland's resolute courage in this anxious time 
The World had only praise, as when on July 9th it said: 

The World appeals to the reason of the working-men. It 
asks them what just cause of offense it is to them that the 
Federal and State troops are employed to sustain the law, to 
guard property against destruction, to protect commerce and 
the mails? 



102 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Whom are the troops opposing? Whom are they ''oppress- 
ing?'' 

Somebody is preventing interstate commerce. Somebody is 
hindering the transit of mails. Somebody is destroying prop- 
erty. Somebody is assaulting and killing the officers of the law. 

These men the troops are called upon to deal with. If there 
are no strikers among the rioters no strikers will be killed or 
wounded when the soldiers shoot. 

The soldiers are citizens. They seek to oppress no one. 
They compel no man to work against his will. They seek 
only to protect men in their natural, necessary, and inalienable 
right to work. 

What grievance is there for honest laborers in this? 

The panic and a currency famine in 1893; strikes that 
called for federal troops in 1894; Tammany relapsed into 
corruption; Coxey^s army marching on Washington to 
demand living conditions for poor men; other armies of 
unemployed not much less ragged, freighted thither in 
special trains by Republican committees to annoy the 
Administration; a new tariff law that pleased neither 
friend nor foe — ^here were conditions more unfavorable to 
the party in power than had existed since the Civil War. 
What chance was there of Democratic success? 

To meet Hill, victorious veteran of a dozen battles, man 
of personal reputation untainted, master of arts political, 
the Republicans nominated Levi P. Morton. The World 
supported Hill. He was, upon the record, a better can- 
didate than Morton. The party had suffered by his 
absence from Albany. But he had earned the hostility 
of the Cleveland wing of the party, first, in being elected 
Governor in 1888 when Cleveland failed to carry the 
state, which to many argued treachery; again in the 
Maynard nomination; more recently in engineering the 
refusal of the Senate to confirm the successive nominations 
of William B. Hornblower and Wheeler H. Peckham to 
the Supreme Court bench because they had opposed 



REACTION 103 

Maynard and because Mr. Hill had resented the Presi- 
dent's failure to consult him upon the appointments as 
a breach of ^'Senatorial courtesy/' 

In the local field The World fought an unrepentant 
Tammany; and the appalling discoveries of the Lexow 
committee investigating pohce conditions furnished the 
issue. Warned of hard going, Tammany sought to run 
Nathan Straus for Mayor, and upon his refusal again 
nominated Hugh Grant. The Republicans, fusing with 
disgusted Democrats, named William L. Strong, whom 
The World supported. 

The result of the 1894 election was an almost unparal- 
leled Democratic disaster. Hill, the invulnerable, was 
beaten by one hundred and fifty-six thousand votes by 
Morton. The country emphatically repudiated the tariff 
policy of the administration and rejected the Wilson bill. 
Mr. Wilson himself, its author, was not to sit in the 
House of Representatives; he was beaten in his own 
district, as the author of the McKinley bill had been in 
Ohio in 1890. A Democratic majority of eighty in the 
House of Representatives was replaced by a Republican 
majority of nearly one hundred and forty, outnumbering 
the Democrats nearly two to one. In the Senate the Re- 
publicans, with the tariff Populists, had a safe majority. 
But for a Presidential veto the path was clear for their 
repeal of the Wilson bill and for the enactment of a 
new high- tariff measure. They could claim with justice 
that they, and not the President, had the mandate of the 
people. 

One gratifying result of the election was the success of 
Mr. Strong in New York, an early and emphatic notice 
to bosses that the citizens of the metropolis would assert 
their independence at the polls. Mayor Strong's term is 
remembered gratefully for some reforms, especially for an 
improvement in the personnel of the police magistrates 
under a new appointive law passed after the Lexow report, 



104 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

and for the appointment as Street Cleaning Commis- 
sioner of George E. Waring, Jr., a competent civil engi- 
neer, whose management of that previously neglected 
service astounded New York by its efficiency and set 
new standards for the future. 

The World had come through the panic years with its 
material success unimpaired and its circulation greatly 
augmented, but upon the spectacle of ruined Democratic 
hopes it gazed with sorrow, and upon the new menace of 
silver agitation it turned with instant appreciation of a 
national danger. The only hope of staving off disaster 
was delay until financial conditions should improve. 
To this end The World favored another international 
monetary conference, as Arthur Balfour, the new British 
Premier, was a bimetallist. It was not averse to the 
coinage of silver at a true ratio with gold if all the nations 
were agreed — an impossible condition. It was not averse 
to any proposal that should avert or postpone the ca- 
lamity of the United States undertaking alone to buy 
all the silver in the world at more than its value. 

The outbreak of the China-Japan war in the closing 
months of 1894 gave The World an opportunity to enforce 
its doctrine of international peace. It was quick to recog- 
nize (March 11, 1895) that ^^This war has added another 
to the great powers on land and sea. There is reason to 
hope that it has also added another to the great progres- 
sive, intellectual, and achieving nations, alert to push 
humanity forward,'' and its sympathy with Japan when 
robbed of the fruits of its victory by the greed of Russia 
was pronounced. 

From the first week of its new management The World, 
practically alone among jom-nals of consequence in the 
East, had advocated the income tax. Its triumph in 
securing the income-tax provisions in the Wilson law was 
short-lived. In the spring of 1895 the tax came before 
the Supreme Court. The stumbling-block was the con- 



REACTION 105 

stitutional provision against direct taxation except when 
apportioned among the states according to population; 
and Joseph H, Choate in opposing the law made skilful 
use of this argument. The World showed that the direct- 
tax clause ^^was adopted solely as a part of the compro- 
mise with slavery for the sake of securing the union of 
the States. All the conditions it was intended to meet 
have passed utterly away," and argued that ^^It is time 
to free the country from the mortmain grasp of the old 
dead slavery issue." It protested against the plea that 
New York and Pennsylvania would pay more than their 
share of the new tax. Was it not right that they should 
pay, when the corporate wealth of the nation was so 
largely concentrated in these states? Thus it traversed 
in advance the lines that Senator Root followed in 1910 
when repelling the idea that New York should object to 
paying a tax on wealth because some New York men 
were wealthy. 

A decision by eight judges declared a portion of the law 
invalid in so far as it imposed a tax upon the income from 
real estate, which was held to be a direct tax. The 
court was divided and inconclusive as to the constitu- 
tionality of further sections. Because of this inconclusive 
result, and because Associate Justice Jackson was ill and 
absent, the case was again heard by the full bench, and, 
by five voices to four, decision was rendered on May 20th 
that "the tax imposed by sections 27 to 37, inclusive, 
of the act of 1894, so far as it falls on the income of real 
estate and of personal property, being a direct tax within 
the meaning of the Constitution, . . . all those sections 
constituting an entire scheme of taxation are necessarily 
invalid." 

The manner of the rendering of the decision was most 
imfortunate. Justice Jackson, as anticipated, sustained 
the law. Justice Harlan delivered the minority opinion 
with a fervor of eloquence not often heard in the Supreme 



106 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Court chamber, characterizing the view of the majority 
as a ^^ disaster to the country.'^ But in the interval 
between the two decisions Justice Shiras had changed his 
opinion. This shifted vote of a single man decided the 
action of the government upon the income tax for almost 
twenty years. Nothing in recent times has done so much 
to weaken respect for the courts as did this disastrous 
outcome. Practically all the Eastern newspapers rejoiced 
in the decision. The World in deploring the result had 
some difficulty in showing respect for the high courts of 
the country: 

The overthrow of the income tax is the triumph of selfishness 
over patriotism. It is another victory of greed over need. 
Great and rich corporations, by hiring the ablest lawyers in 
the land and fighting against a petty tax upon superfluity as 
other men have fought for their liberties and their lives, have 
secured the exemption of wealth from paying its just share 
toward the support of the Government that protects it. 

In accomplishing this they have obtained from the Supreme 
Court a reversal of its decisions for thirty years past. More 
than that, they have persuaded one of the judges to reconsider 
and reverse his own opinion of a month ago. 

No dictum or decision of any court can make wrong right. 
And it is not right that the entire cost of the Federal Government 
shall rest upon consumption. It is not right that wealth shall 
pay no more than poverty toward the support of the national 
administration. . . . 

The decision leaves it doubtful if any income tax can stand 
before the court as it is now constituted that is not apportioned 
among the States in accordance with an obsolete provision 
as to population which was adopted as one of the compromises 
with slavery. 

Such a law would be too unequal to be considered. But a 
way will be found — and the jubilant plutocrats and smiling 
tax-dodgers may as well prepare for it — a way will be found to 
revoke what Justice Brown well calls this ''surrender of the 
taxing power to the moneyed class." This country will not, 



REACTION 107 

again in the indignant words of the dissenting judge, consent 
to ''the submergence of the liberties of the people in a sordid 
despotism of wealth." 

Twenty years after the great victory of 1892 The 
Worldy replying to Henry Watterson's dispraise of Grover 
Cleveland's moderate policy upon the tariff, compressed 
into a piquant paragraph a description of the calamity 
that struck the Democratic party, and with it and through 
it the country, in that disheartening time: 

Marse Henry holds up his hands in horror at our reference 
to Grover Cleveland's letter of acceptance in 1892, and screams 
that because of it ''the whole ship's crew of us went to hell 
in a hand-basket." Something of that sort took place, although 
we are not so certain about the vehicle, but the editor of the 
Courier- Journal is quite mistaken as to the causes. If the 
Democrats in 1893 had made an honest, intelligent downward 
revision of the McKinley Act the country would have sustained 
them. But they jobbed it, they were trapped in a disgusting 
Sugar Trust scandal, their own President refused to sign their 
tariff bill because of its "party perfidy and dishonor," their 
income-tax provision was upset by the Supreme Court, the 
Cleveland administration had a deficit to deal with, crops were 
bad, the silver issue bedeviled the whole economic situation, 
the secret bond sales made a bad matter infinitely worse — 
and that is why "the whole ship's crew of Us" landed where 
we did. 

An income -tax -amendment resolution, passed by a 
Republican Congress with Democratic help and urged 
by a Republican President, is now ratified by the states. 
The country is awake to the redress of tariff excesses as 
one means of halting the increase in the cost of living. 
It is resolute in its determination to deal with the problems 
raised by the trusts. The World^s battle has not been 
without result. 

One regrettable result of the Lexow investigation had 



108 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

been the passage of a bi-partisan or, more accurately, bi- 
boss police bill. Mayor Strong drafted Theodore Roose- 
velt from the Civil Service Commission and placed him 
upon the police board, with which he ran away. Setting 
out with the purpose of enforcing the excise law, he began 
a series of Harun-al-Rashid raids, which made him the 
terror not more of evil-doers than of peaceable pinochle- 
players in saloon back rooms. If the city could have 
voted upon the Sunday laws there is no doubt how it would 
have voted then or later. The law was retained because 
to the city boss it was a source of illegitimate profit 
through the sale of privileges to break it, while upon the 
strength of it the sympathetic country boss could appeal 
to no-license men within the party. Said The World, 
therefore, to Theodore Roosevelt, president of the Police 
Board of New York City: 

When you say that you seek by the obnoxious enforcement 
of this law to secure its repeal, are you not indulging in self- 
deception? You know that the people who are wronged and 
oppressed by your proceedings have no power to repeal the law. 
You know that those who have such power are in no way an- 
noyed by your nagging and exasperating activity in preventing 
the hard-working laborer from getting a pitcher of beer for his 
Sunday dinner. 

Your course advertises yourself, Mr. Roosevelt, as effectively 
as if you were a brand of soap. But does it do any good? 
Is it wise? Does it commend '' reform" to have the innocent 
annoyed in its name while crime runs riot and criminals go 
free? 

In spite of all disadvantages The World was not without 
hope that the Democrats might reclaim the state in No- 
vember, 1895. ''The Legislature," it said, ''is extravagant, 
corrupt, subservient. It has surrendered to one boss, 
while the Democrats had four or more. Hunger for spoils 
dominates everything.'' Piatt was for the moment a 



REACTION 109 

worse boss than the state had seen since Tweed, domi- 
nating his party, in league with corrupt finance, ever 
ready to 'Meal'' with Tammany. But his time was not 
come. The state went Republican again that year by 
ninety thousand. Hard times were still pressing upon 
the party in power as they had done in the debacle of 
1894. In New York City Tammany won a series of 
local offices of small importance chiefly upon the issue 
of Roosevelt and beer. The better administration Strong 
was giving the city went for naught. ''The reactionary 
result was provoked by the pig-headed folly of the Presi- 
dent of the Police Board.'' Reform defeated reforms. 



IX 

VENEZUELA 

1895 

The Romance of a Young Explorer — Schomburgk^s Line — Disputed Ven- 
ezuelan Boundary Becomes Disquieting in 1895 — Grover Cleveland's Mes- 
sage Threatening Great Britain — War Measures Passed by Congress — 
The Belligerent American Press — '^The World's" Opposition — Its Christ- 
mas Messages of Good-Will from Abroad — Mr. Olney and Senator Lodge 
as Jingoes — How the Trouble Was Settled — Presentation of an Address 
to Mr. Pulitzer in England — His Eloquent Response. 

Robert Schomburgk, a youth of twenty-four years, 
landed in Virginia in 1828 as supercargo of a flock of 
merino sheep. 

The son of a Saxon clergyman, he had been trained to 
commerce, but took a livelier interest in science and 
philanthropy. After hours in the Richmond counting- 
house where he found brief employment he scoured the 
neighborhood for botanical specimens. At the local slave- 
mart he learned to hold slavery in deep detestation. 

The following year found Schomburgk at St. Thomas, 
West Indies. At Anegada Island one day he saw through 
the clear water the sharks nuzzling out from the ^tween- 
decks of a slaver on the reefs the bodies of negroes from 
Africa who had gone down with her. The sight stirred 
him deeply, and he spent three months in charting reefs 
and currents; once nearly killed by a wrecker with whose 
trade he was interfering. 

The charts, sent to the Royal Geographical Society in 
London, and some notes upon plants and fishes, won 



VENEZUELA 111 

Schomburgk in 1835 the command of an exploring expedi- 
tion in British Guiana. He found the famous urari 
poison, Strichnos Toxifera, Schomb., and ''Schomburgk's 
four-cornered fish"; he found also, at the falls of the 
Berbice, a great water-lily which he later named after 
the young queen, the Victoria Regia. 

What was sixty years later to make Sir Robert Schom- 
burgk's name a war-cry was the map in the account of his 
travels published in London, May, 1840. This showed 
the boundary line between Venezuela and British Guiana, 
as claimed by the latter, running up the Amaruru, or 
Amacuro, River and its small branch, the Cuyuni, to the 
eighth parallel, and thence across country to Brazil. The 
line claimed by Venezuela, as mapped by Schomburgk, 
followed the Maroco and Essequibo rivers. But Schom- 
burgk's map was quite inaccurate as to natural details. 

Venezuela drew title from the Spanish conquest; 
British Guiana succeeded to HoUand^s. Neither old nor 
new owners had fixed the boundary. British Guiana had 
freed her slaves in 1838, but the slave-trade still flourished; 
and, as it was Schomburgk's dream to see free British 
colonies in America fostered to offset the slave-holding 
United States, he urged the survey of the Guiana bound- 
ary by a joint commission and energetic colonization. 
The British cabinet thought it better to map the bound- 
ary first and consult Venezuela afterward, and sent 
Schomburgk in 1841 to survey the line, which was found 
for physical reasons impossible. 

Venezuela never accepted the Schomburgk hne. In 
April, 1895, Venezuelan authorities arrested two British 
inspectors of police for acting on Venezuelan soil in the 
valley of the Cuyuwini or greater Cuyuni River, a branch 
of the Essequibo. The men were released under British 
pressure. Friction increased between the big and the little 
power. President Crespo begged the American Adminis- 
tration to help Venezuela; Minister Andrade in Washing- 



112 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

ton cited the Monroe doctrine against British aggression, 
and the Venezuelan question became pressing, but no one 
looked for serious trouble. 

Then came Grover Cleveland's famous message on 
December 18, 1895, espousing the Venezuelan cause, 
asking for an American commission to ** determine the 
true divisional line," and proclaiming that the threatening 
attitude of Great Britain toward a South American state 
was a menace to the ^' peace and safety" of the United 
States and to ^Hhe integrity of our free institutions." 

The British had a poor case. The Salisbury claim of 
1890 went far beyond the Schombiu-gk line, which had 
been practically accepted by the Aberdeen ministry, and 
took in the entire watershed of the greater Cuyuni River. 
Even the original Schomburgk line crossed the Cuyuni 
twenty miles west of the Dutch boundary fort, to which 
the English had succeeded. But the difference was cer- 
tainly not worth fighting about. 

Eighteen years after the event it is hard to realize 
that the two English-speaking nations were at the verge 
of war over a bit of equatorial back country where white 
men cannot live. It was a time of much agitation over 
Irish Home Rule, and Irish sympathizers in the United 
States burned to seize every occasion for '^twisting the 
lion's tail." American jingoes cried for war. The jingoes 
of England refused to be outshrieked; moderate men 
feared that war was inevitable, and hostile preparations 
were pushed. 

The House of Representatives passed by unanimous 
vote the Hitt resolution authorizing a boundary com- 
mission and appropriating one hundred thousand dollars 
for its expenses. Although a commission in whose doings 
Great Britain was not consulted was as preposterous as 
had been the mapping of the Schomburgk line without 
consulting Venezuela, the shrewd lawyers of the Senate 
made no effort to stem the tide of jingoism. Prevented 



VENEZUELA 113 

for one day by the objection of Senator Allen, of Nebraska, 
from proceeding to the second reading of the Hitt resolu- 
tion, the Senate passed it unanimously on Saturday, the 
22d of December. Mr. Cleveland signed it the same day. 

All that week ruled indescribable tumult. The Presi- 
dent's message was read in schools. Old soldiers proffered 
their services. In Wall Street, in spite of a panic that sent 
quotations tumbling from ten to twenty-five points and 
caused the failure of several firms, the war sentiment 
was so unanimous that Charles Stewart Smith could not 
secure ten signatures to call a Chamber of Commerce 
meeting to deprecate the reign of unreason. 

Almost without conspicuous exception the American 
press upheld Mr. Cleveland in having used the language 
of threat. The Sun branded as ''an alien or a traitor'' 
''any American citizen, whether inside or outside of 
Congress, who hesitates at this conjuncture to uphold 
the President of the United States.'^ "Not an hour 
should be lost," it said, "in making ready for any duty that 
may come upon the country." On the day following the 
Cleveland message The Sun thus urged the making of 
allies : 

It will be the fault of our State Department — and we do not believe 
that Mr. Richard Olney will omit any precaution at this crisis — if 
such an understanding is not betimes arrived at with the Court of St. 
Petersburg and the French Republic as will assure to us the co- 
operation of the French and Russian navies in the event of war. It 
should be the aim of American diplomacy to see to it that of the 
naval battles, wliich the British government no doubt imagines 
would be confined to American waters, some at least should be fought 
in the British Channel and the Irish Sea. 

The Sun was not alone in inviting war. Apropos the 
pacific efforts of Mr. Smith and others, The New York 
Times said: 

Under the teaching of these bloodless Philistines, these patriots of 
the ticker, if they were heeded, American civilization would degenerate 



114 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

to the level of the Digger Indians, who eat dirt all their lives and 
appear to like it. We should become a nation of hucksters, flabby in 
spirit, flabby in muscle, flabby in principle, and devoid of honor, for 
it is always a characteristic of the weak and cowardly to try to make 
up by craft and trickery for their defect of noble quahties. 

The Tribune said that: 

The message will not be welcome to the peace-at-any-price cuckoos 
who have been clamoring that the Monroe doctrine is a myth, and 
that we have no business to meddle with affairs between Great Britain 
and Venezuela. 

To the chorus of war provocatives The Evening Post 
opposed a corrective common sense; The Herald urged 
'Hhe desirability of international arbitration. '^ 

Taking vigorously the side of peace in the controversy, 
The World said in its article, ''No Cause of War/^ on 
December 21st: 

The President justified his proposed enforcement of what he 
mistakenly regarded as the Monroe doctrine on the ground 
that it is "important to our peace and safety as a nation, and 
is essential to the integrity of our free institutions and the 
tranquil maintenance of our distinctive form of government." 

Is this true? Does any possible divisional line between 
Venezuela and British Guiana hold a menace to "our peace 
and safety as a nation"? Is the integrity of Venezuela "essen- 
tial to the integrity of our free institutions?" Does the deter- 
mination of a boundary line in South America threaten "the 
tranquil maintenance of our distinctive form of government"? 

Merely to ask these questions is to expose the utterly and 
preposterously inadequate basis of the war-threat which the 
President has fulminated. It is an insult to the understanding 
of an intelligent American school-child. There is not a hot- 
head among all the jingoes who does not know that England 
is more likely to become a republic than the United States are 
to revert to monarchism. The entire trend of government 
for the past fifty years has been toward democracy. Witness 
republican France, Mexico and Brazil. Note the evolution 



VENEZUELA 115 

of republics from the warring despotisms of Central and South 
America. Observe the working of the leaven of democracy in 
England, and even in Germany. . . . 

The reasons urged for the forcible application of a false 
Monroe doctrine in the Venezuela case therefore fall to pieces 
at a touch. There is no substance to them. There is no menace 
in the boundary line. It is not our frontier. It is none of our 
business. To make it such without cause, and to raise the 
specter of war over a false sentiment and a false conception, 
is something more than "a grave blunder." If persisted in 
it will be a colossal crime. 

From the appeal of common sense to the appeal of 
common sentiment was a quick transition. In its 
Sunday editorial review of the relapse into barbarism 
The World said, under the head-line ^^ Peace on Earth'': 

During this week the American people are to celebrate their 
annual social and fraternal holiday. . . . From rich to poor 
we have all agreed that its appropriate motto shall be that of 
the original heralds of its good tidings, "Peace on earth, 
good will to men." ... 

When we are doing our best to lighten some hearts with 
merriment and wipe away some tears with charity, what have 
the two representative Christian nations of the world been 
doing? The blood of innocence cries out from the stones of 
Armenia, the races of Madagascar have been falling in heaps 
before the rapid-fire guns of conquest, and the Christian 
missionaries in Turkey and China are huddling in vain for 
protection round the doors of the embassies. 

In this sad crisis of humanity the two nations who have made 
Christmas both a memorial and a mockery, whose moral 
agreement alone would have quenched fanaticism and stayed 
rapine, have been set by the ears over a remote and unimportant 
boundary line, and fill the air with threats of war. It had 
been believed that peace on earth has its promise and its hopes 
in America, but the voice of fratricidal hatred has disturbed 
the faith. Even ministers of religion and eminent dignitaries 
of the Church have carried human hero-worship so far as to 



116 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

forget the mission of their Master, and have joined in the 
clamor for war. 

Before the Sunday World again appears we shall have taken 
down our wreaths; the holly and the mistletoe will have gone 
with the voices of the merry-making children. But we shall 
retain our hopes. The white doves, unseen, will be fluttering 
somewhere. There have been too many Christmases past for 
brothers at this late day to set about killing each other without 
provocation. . . . Rancor and revenge have come and gone, 
but they will not dampen the desire of men for peace on earth. 

But it was upon Christmas eve and Christmas day, one 
week after the reading of the Cleveland message in Con- 
gress, that The World made for peace an appeal that will 
long be memorable. For the entire week it had been 
weighting the wires that bound the two nations together 
with messages whose fruit was then set forth. 

The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII., and the 
Duke of York, now King George V., authorized this 
despatch: 

, , ^ Sandringham, December 2L 1895. 

Mb. Pulitzer, 

New York World, New York. 

Sir Francis KnoUys is desired by the Prince of Wales and the Duke 
of York to thank Mr. Pulitzer for his cablegram. 

They earnestly trust, and cannot but believe, the present crisis will 
be arranged in a manner satisfactory to both countries, and will be 
succeeded by the same warm feeling of friendship which has existed 
between them for so many years. 

Lord Salisbury's representative in the foreign office, 
while not prejudicing Great Britain's case by admissions, 
thus indicated the temper of that Conservative statesman: 

J. Pulitzer London, December 22, 1895. 

The World, New York. 
While fully reciprocating your friendly sentiments, it is impossible 
for the Foreign Secretary to take the course you suggest [respecting 
arbitration]. E. Barrington, 

Foreign Office. 



VENEZUELA 117 

From Ha warden, December 21st, William E. Gladstone, 
former Prime Minister, while stating that he ^^ dared not 
interfere,'^ cabled the famous phrase: ''Only common 
sense is necessary/^ 

Another former Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery, was 
not restrained from a more extended response. Wiring 
from Edinbrn-gh three days before Christmas, he said: 

Edinburgh, December 2S, 1895. 
Joseph Pulitzer, 

World Office, New York. 

I can only reply that I absolutely disbelieve in the possibility of 
war between the United States and Great Britain on such an issue as 
this, for it would be the greatest crime on record. 

History would have to relate that the two mighty nations of the 
Anglo-Saxon race, at a time when they appeared to be about to over- 
shadow the world in best interests of Christianity and civilization, 
preferred to cut each other's throats about a frontier squabble in a 
small South American repubhc. 

The proposition only requires to be stated to demonstrate its 
absurdity. All that is wanted is a level head and cool common 
sense in our governments. 

I congratulate you on the good work that your paper appears to 
be doing in this direction. 

The great churchmen of England and Ireland, in the 
despatches that follow, remembered the injunction laid 
upon Christians to live at peace one with another : 

London, December ;?4, 1895. 
The World, Pulitzer, 

New York. 

With all my heart I pray to God to avert from this country and 
the United States the crime and disaster of war between them, and I 
hold it to be the bounden duty of every man in both countries to 
avoid all provocative language and do all that he conscientiously can 
to promote peace. 

F., London, 

{Bishop of London). 



118 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

London, December 28^ 1895. 
New York Worlds 

New York. 
Our common hmnanity and our Christianity would sternly condemn 
a fratricidal war. Every Christian patriot on both sides of the 
Atlantic must employ every effort to avert a curse that would strike 
us all ahke. 

We are too closely bound to America by blood, respect, and affection 
for her people to tolerate the idea of bloodshed. 

Let us all remember the words "Blessed are the peacemakers, for 
they shall be called the children of God." 

Herbert Cardinal Vaughan, 

Archbishop of Westminster. 

Dublin, December 23 y 1895, 
New York World, 

New York. 

Wholly unaware of merits of case. Can only express abhorrence 
of war in general. 

It will be deplorable if wise precedent of 1871 [the Alabama claims 
arbitration] cannot be followed. 

Archbishop, DubHn, 

(Archbishop Walsh). 

Manchester, December 23, 1895, 
Pulitzer, 

World, New York. 
The possibility of a war with America fills most of us with a feeling 
of horror. It would be to all intents and purposes a civil war, and 
could not fail to arouse passions and create enmities which many 
years would fail to allay. 

This would be all the more unfortunate because of late years the 
feehng in England for America and Americans has been one of con- 
tinually increasing, and even fraternal interest and admiration. 

We cannot see what there is in the present dispute to create such 
deep irritation as we hear of, and we are sure that if for such a cause 
war is allowed to arise between brethren before every legitimate means 
of conciliation is exhausted those who precipitate the contest on 
either side will have committed a crime against civihzation. 
May God avert so great a crime and calamity! 

J., Manchester, 

(Bishop of Manchester). 



VENEZUELA 119 

December 26, 1895, 

PULITZEB, 

W(yrld Office, New York. 
Earnestly hope peaceful solution may be found; every circumstance 
contributes to render war between the two countries a dreadful 
calamity. Cakdinal Logue (of Ireland). 

Joseph Pulitzer, ^^^^' ^''''^^'' ^^' ^^^^• 

The World, New York. 
War [between] England [and] America unnatural, strife between 
mother and daughter, the leaders in [the] progress [of] Christianity 
and civihzation, who will continue so with [the] blessing of peace. 

Archbishop (of Armagh). 

Dublin, December 23, 1895. 
World, New York. 

I am fully assured that every member of the Church of Ireland 
most earnestly deprecates anything that could imperil peace or cause 
disunion between us and our American brethren. 

Lord Plunkett, 

Archbishop of Dublin. 

Liverpool, December 23, 1895. 
The World, Joseph Pulitzer, 

New York. 
American excitement very sorrowful and surprising in England. 
No feehng here but peaceful and brotherly. 
IMuch prayer going up. Bishop of Liverpool. 

Chester, December 23, 1895. 
Joseph Pulitzer, 
New York World. 
Every generous and Christian heart in England, and not least in 
kindly Chester, is wholly with you in your high appeal to the more 
dehberate judgment of your great and understanding people. 
God speed you in your patriotic endeavor. 

Bishop of Chester. 

The late Henry Labouchere cabled with refreshing 
coolness : 



120 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

So far as I am concerned, would prefer Venezuela and Guiana 
consigned to bottom of sea [rather] than war with United States. 

[It is] thought here United States [will] insist on being the arbi- 
tratist in frontier dispute. If distinctly understood, proposal is that 
an unbiased arbitrator be appointed to delimit frontier. Am certain 
public opinion would insist on our government accepting this solution. 

Most desirable pubhc men in America should explain. 

Especial interest attaches to the cablegram of John 
Redmond in view of his prominence as a leader in the 
Home Rule cause: 

The W Id Dublin, December 23, 1895. 

New York. 

You ask for expression of opinion on war crisis from me as repre- 
sentative of British thought. In this, as in all other matters, I can 
speak only as a representative of Irish opinion. 

If war results from reassertion of Monroe doctrine, Irish national 
sentiment will be soHd on side of America. 

With Home Rule rejected, Ireland can have no feeling of friendliness 
toward Great Britain. John E. Redmond, M. P. 

The World's editorial comment upon this exhibition of 
pacific sentiment drove home the lesson: 

No one can question the sincerity or the manliness of these 
utterances. They have the added merit that under the provo- 
cation of a threat against the nation which they represent their 
authors do not reply in kind. Some of them suggest arbitra- 
tion as the proper solution of the difficulty. There could not 
be a happier or more timely suggestion. ... Arbitration is 
the right and reasonable policy. Lord Salisbury approved 
the principle and applauded the practice. But he objected 
that no suitable arbitrator of the present dispute could be 
found, and he diplomatically — which does not necessarily mean 
finally — objected to including a certain part of the disputed 
territory to any agreement to arbitrate. But with public 
opinion in both countries favoring arbitration as a thousand 
times preferable to war in such a petty dispute as this, no 
government can afford to stand out against it. . . . 



VENEZUELA 121 

In what manner could the President so gracefully and fit- 
tingly inaugurate the glad holiday season as by sending to 
the English public the words of his great predecessor in office, 
"Let us have peace"? 

The author of the main portion of the President's 
Venezuela message was Richard OIney, Secretary of State. 
The message was ^Hhe result of the false assumptions and 
unwarranted deductions contained in Secretary OIney's 
^note' communicated through Mr. Bayard [then our 
Ambassador to England] to Lord Salisbury." His note 
was thus handled by The World on December 27th: 

1. First of all, Mr. Olney falsely assumes that this Vene- 
zuela boundary dispute is the kind of thing contemplated in 
the Monroe doctrine. It is inconceivable that a lawyer of 
Mr. Olney's astuteness should be honestly mistaken upon such 
a point and in so egregious a way. 

2. Mr. Olney says, very offensively, ''The United States is 
to-day practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is 
law." 

This is obviously untrue. The ''fiat" of the United States 
is not law in Canada or in British Columbia; it is certainly 
not law in Chili or in Mexico or in Brazil. Our Government is 
sovereign within its own borders, but it is neither actually 
nor practically sovereign anywhere else on earth. . . . 

3. As if to make the insolence of the foregoing assertion more 
offensive, Mr. Olney explains to the British Government that 
our "practical sovereignty" and the influence of our "fiat" 
are due, not chiefly to our exalted character as a nation, but to 
our ability to "lick all creation." It is, he says, "because, 
in addition to all other grounds its infinite resources, combined 
with its isolated position, render it master of the situation and 
practically invulnerable, as against any or all other powers." 
This is a boast which the General of the Army has flatly con- 
tradicted in his latest official report. So far from being "invul- 
nerable," Gen. Miles says we are in a defenseless condition as 
regards our seacoast. So far from being "master of the 
situation," we should have to trust to luck in any foreign war. 

9 



122 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

So far from being ready to fight ''any or all other powers," 
we are unready to fight any power, if readiness implies a proper 
equipment. 

Mr. Olney was not an antagonist without resource. 
He '^ dragged down from the ancient armory of the law" 
as still ''in full force and unrepealed" section 5335 of the 
Revised Statutes of the United States. This statute, 
passed January 30, 1799, sets forth: 

Any citizen of the United States who, without the permission or 
authority of the Government . . . carries on any verbal correspond- 
ence or intercourse with any foreign government, with an intent to 
influence the conduct of any foreign government in relation to any 
controversy with the United States, . . . shall be punished by a 
fine of not more than $5,000 and by imprisonment during a term 
not less than six months, nor more than three years. 

On January 7, 1896, Senator Lodge, of Massachusetts, 
quoted this section with approval in the Senate, bringing 
from The World an amused rejoinder: 

This is undoubtedly law. It is on the statute books. It is 
section 5335. It is reinforced by section 2113, of the same 
era, which forbids corresponding with foreign governments to 
incite the Indians to raids on the settlers. . . . The World 
pleads guilty in advance to having, "without the permission 
or authority" of Mr. Cleveland or Mr. Olney, carried on inter- 
course by cable with Lord Salisbury, the Prince of Wales and 
Duke of York, the Rothschilds and other foreign dignitaries. 

The statute cited is aged, obsolete, moldy, moth-eaten, 
dust-covered, and was forgotten until resuscitated by the zeal 
and watchfulness of Secretary Olney. It is true, furthermore, 
that the more modern laws, notably the anti-trust laws and 
anti-monopoly laws, are not enforced. But this does not relieve 
the ex-Attorney-General from enforcing the law to which he 
has called attention through the newspapers. It is really time 
to make an example of presumptuous editors who dare to inter- 
fere to break the force and repair the damage of an imitation 
jingo policy with its disturbing threat of war. 



VENEZUELA 123 

The ironical article closed with a loftier defiance: 
''The World will not descend into the dungeon and put 
out its million-candle-power torch of liberty and intelli- 
gence without a struggle." When, years later, an eminent 
friend of Mr. Lodge was to imitate him in invoking an 
obsolete statute to silence The World in a matter of political 
conscience it was to fight him to the last ditch in the same 
spirit and win another notable triumph. 

''Only common sense" was, as it proved, necessary. 
The men who after reflection desired peace were in a 
majority in both countries. What was needed was a 
voice. 

That there was nothing to fight about was shown in the 
sequel. When negotiation succeeded to threats interest 
in the Venezuelan question lapsed. Why should it not? 
The claims of the two countries differed by sixty-three 
thousand square miles; but it is doubtful if there were 
a hundred white men in the disputed territory. In all 
British Guiana in Schomburgk's day were four thousand 
whites. There are less than five thousand now, aside 
from the Portuguese drawn thither by the nearness of 
Brazil; and in 1908, in this pestilential region for a 
bit of which Britain and America were seventeen years 
ago at the point of war, deaths exceeded births by thir- 
teen per cent. 

It is doubtful if one man in a hundred in either country 
remembers what became of the controversy. With the 
dawning of the new year the work of clearing up the mis- 
understanding went forward. Direct relations between 
Venezuela and Great Britain having been broken off, 
the United States continued to act in behalf of the former 
state. On June 6, 1897, an arbitration treaty between 
Great Britain and Venezuela was ratified. Venezuela 
chose as her representatives upon a boundary commission 
Chief Justice Fuller, of the United States Supreme Court, 
and Associate Justice Brewer; Great Britain, Lord 



124 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Herschel and Justice Collins; and the four agreed upon 
Professor Martens, the Russian peace advocate, as a 
fifth. On October 3, 1899, the ''modified Schom- 
burgk line^' was unanimously adopted. Again it was 
found impossible to follow in the field a line laid down 
from imperfect maps, and in 1902 the little that was left 
of the dispute was referred to the King of Italy, who in 
1904 fixed the present line. 

There are those who think that Grover Cleveland's 
Venezuela message was a masterpiece of statecraft, that 
it ''put the country on the map" where diplomats forever 
docket the shifting war strength of the world and scheme 
for preponderant combinations. So a war lord may 
reason, eager not to be overlooked in any division of the 
spoil of weak nations, but what have such considerations 
to do with a peaceable repubhc, remote from the battle- 
grounds of the Old World and committed by wise founders 
to avoid entanghng alliances and occasions of warfare? 

Had The World cast its influence upon the side of war in 
December, 1895, a conflict might still have been averted. 
But no one who has studied the incident will fail to re- 
joice that the margin by which that calamity was avoided 
was widened by the courage and the eloquence of one 
American newspaper. 

For The World and its proprietor there came some 
months later a reminder of the part they had taken in the 
controversy. The presentation of an address of thanks 
to Joseph Pulitzer by the peace societies of Great Britain 
is here told in the Associated Press despatch under date 
of London, June 5, 1896 : 

London, June 5: A remarkable tribute was paid to an American 
journalist and to American journalism at Moray Lodge this afternoon. 

Representatives of all the leading peace and arbitration societies 
in the United Kingdom, others in sympathy with the movement, and 
a number of leading American and Enghsh personages assembled on 
the occasion of the presentation of an address of thanks to Mr. Joseph 



VENEZUELA 125 

Pulitzer, proprietor of the New York World, for his efforts in behaK 
of good feeUng between the United States and Great Britain. 

In addition to delegates from these societies the company included 
Cardinal Vaughan, Sir Lewis Morris, the Hon. Rev. Carr Glynn, 
Sir James Reckitt, Sir Robert Head Cook, editor of the Daily News, 
and ^Ir. Henrv' Watterson, editor of The Louisville Courier-Journal. 

The deputation was introduced by Passmore Edwards, and included 
delegates from the Peace Society, the International Arbitration and 
Peace Association, the International Arbitration League, the Peace 
Committee of the Society of Friends, and the Dublin Peace Society. 

The engrossed address, on veUum, presented to Mr. Puhtzer, which 
was read, says : 

"We desire, on behalf of all who wish to see knit, even more firmly, 
the ties of histor>' and kinship between the two great branches of the 
Enghsh-speaking race, to proffer our hearty thanks for the prompt 
efforts made by you and the great journal you direct toward that 
noble object, and to congratulate you on the immense and gratifying 
success resulting from that beneficent exemphfication of the mar- 
velous facihties of modern journalism in the dark days of last December. 

'•'Your prompt inter\-ention evoked from the best, wisest, and most 
influential persons of the day so united and emphatic a protest that 
the counsels of moderation and sanity were enabled to exert their 
rightful sway over true pubhc sentiment." 

The address . . . dwells upon the desire of both nations for perma- 
nent arbitration and closes with a renewed tribute to Mr. Pulitzer 
and The World. 

The reading of the address was much applauded, and a number of 
speeches followed. 

Cardinal Vaughan said: 

"I desire to bear testimony to the great ser^nces you, sir, have 
rendered in the cause of peace between two great peoples of a common 
language and tradition; the two great nations in which the demo- 
cratic spirit most rapidly develops. Fears have been expressed that 
a democracy would be unable to bear up in a time of pohtical excite- 
ment and stress. But it was seen how a great journalist, directing a 
great journal, representing the popular mind, was able to seize the 
moment when trouble threatened, and by a timely warning, by the 
use of common sense, by an appeal to humanity and morahty, which 
reside in both, was able to calm the pubhc mind and create in both 
nations a feehng that peace must prevail. Your great efforts were 
widely appreciated. But yoiu" task is far from complete. You, 



126 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

with us, must desire and must work for a permanent tribunal. It has 
been my happiness and privilege to be here and to add my tribute 
of respect." ' 

Sir Robert Head Cook, editor of the Daily News, then spoke of the 
services rendered to the profession of journahsm by Mr. Pulitzer's 
action. 

After more speeches touching his efforts, Mr. Pulitzer stepped 
forward to reply, and was greeted with loud applause. He said: 

"I am deeply touched, but am, unfortunately, an invalid, and under 
a doctor's orders, and I ask permission that my response be read by 
a young American friend — my son." 

Ralph PuHtzer then read his father's reply, as follows: 

"The Reign op Reason vs. the Reign op Force 

"I am deeply sensible of the great compliment of your presence. 
Yet I feel that you come to do honor to a principle, and not to a person. 
It is a natural desire with men of earnest conviction to find expression 
for that conviction. 

"I know of no purely moral sentiment that has been advanced in 
England since the abolition of slavery that appeals so strongly to the 
mind and heart as this idea of substituting civiHzed methods of peace 
and reason for barbarism and needless war. 

"It is encouraging to feel that there are men in the world hke those 
constituting your various peace and arbitration organizations; men 
who, putting aside their own interest and pleasure, and neglecting 
their own comfort and their own affairs, labor for the public good and 
a high ideal. We beyond the Atlantic have watched with admiration 
your devoted enthusiasm, often under discouragement and not seldom 
in the face of misapprehension. I congratulate you upon the fruit 
of your labors in the progress of this sentiment which I have observed 
during my present visit. 

"In America there is not — or, at least, recently there was not — a 
single organized society such as yours. But this is not because the 
American people are opposed to the principle you represent. Just 
the reverse. It is because all of the people in the United States, 
regardless of parties and sections, are in favor of arbitration and, as 
it were, form one national arbitration society, which has grown from 
a membership of seven million that it had when arbitration was 
provided for in the Treaty of Ghent to seventy million to-day. It is 
growing at the rate of over a miUion a year, and will number over a 
a hundred miUions in twenty years. 



VENEZUELA 127 

"True Americanism means arbitration. If the great Republic 
across the sea stands for anything it stands for the reign of reason 
as opposed to the reign of force; for argument, peaceful discussion, 
and lawful adjustment as opposed to passion and war. 

"America is proud of the fact that arbitration is an American idea. 

"Even our jingoes all were and are for arbitration, and the dark 
cloud that recently passed over America was only made possible by 
an unfortunate refusal of arbitration. 

"It was a noble idea that stirred the American people, even though 
that idea was based upon a mistaken conception of fact. The spirit 
of protest was called out by a natural sympathy with the under dog, 
as we say — with the weak against the strong — and not by any personal 
feehng for Venezuela, with which country Americans have hardly 
anything in common. It was produced by the regard of our people 
for the very appearance of justice, though the substance itself were 
not there, and by their determination to protect American ideas 
against foreign intrusion, even outside our boundary hne. 

"In the mind of every American the cherished Monroe doctrine 
stands almost side by side with the Constitution and the Declaration 
of Independence, and if, from their great devotion to that doctrine — 
which in an impulsive enthusiasm they thought was involved — 
Americans espoused the Venezuelan cause, is that not more creditable 
to them than if they had acted from mere personal sympathy? 

"If the New York World has been to any degree helpful in this 
Venezuelan affair, your warm words of appreciation are welcome, 
and are an encom'agement to all members of my profession on both 
sides of the Atlantic who have fearlessly discharged their duty under 
great difficulties. For it is not pleasant both to criticize the govern- 
ment and offend the people in free countries, where popular opinion 
is always the force behind the government. Where that opinion is 
subject to impulses, often from an excess of enthusiasm, the responsi- 
bility of the press becomes most grave. 

'It is a didy to interpret the right, to expose the wrong, to teach the 
moral, to advocate the true and oppose the false, constantly and con- 
scientiously, judicially and fearlessly. 

"Without sacrificing conscience to the natural desire of plaudits and 
popularity, it must attack error, whether emanating from the Cabinet or 
from the people themselves. 

''It must do its duty against that false and perverted patriotism called 
jingoism. 

"True patriotism, true Americanism mean love of and pride in 
coimtry. But we love our great Republic, not because it has seventy 
milUons of people, not because of its vast area and exhaustless re- 



128 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

sources, not even because of its wonderful progress. We love her 
because her corner-stone is enUghtened intelHgence, and her foundations 
are freedom, equality, pubhc morality, national honor, tolerance, and, 
above all, justice. 

''Jingoism is not confined to any one country, but is found in 
England as well as in America, in Germany as well as in France, in 
Russia as well as in Japan. Jingoism is an appeal to national vanity, 
national prejudices, or national animosities. 

"Every day there rests upon the conscientious press the responsi- 
bihty of combating these prejudices and of teaching lessons of enlight- 
enment. 

'^Arbitration, as I have said, is an American idea. The very first 
treaty of peace into which the United States entered, the treaty with 
England in 1783, provided that any dispute that might arise under it 
should be settled by arbitration. The second treaty of peace, the 
Treaty of Ghent, made in 1814, also contained an arbitration clause, 
which was the means of settling several acute disputes that otherwise 
might have reopened the smarting wounds of war. 

"Three times since the war of 1812 peace was threatened more 
darkly than in the Venezuela incident. The first occasion was the 
dispute as to the northeastern boundary, which came to a crisis in 
1828. War seemed inevitable, but the arrangements for arbitration 
gave time for passion to cool and for reason to have a fair hearing, 
and the crisis ended in a compromise. Then there were the difficulties 
arising from the Trent affair and the Alabama claims. 

"In the Trent affair war was averted because both nations listened 
to reason. In the affair of the Alabama claims the Treaty of Wash- 
ington was made in 1871, providing for the Geneva Arbitration 
Tribunal. 

"The force of the idea of arbitration in America is well illustrated 
by the settlement of the Canadian fisheries dispute in 1878. The 
Arbitration Conunission decided in favor of England. After the 
decision was announced it was discovered that the award was based 
on false evidence. But America honorably insisted upon abiding by 
the decision of the commission and paid the award of $5,000,000 to 
our Canadian friends — a gigantic sum for a few fish. 

"In the eighty years since the Treaty of Ghent America has an 
unbroken record for arbitration. Only a short time ago, in 1890, 
both Houses of the American Congress joined in a resolution authorizing 
the President to negotiate with the powers to the end that differences 
and disputes which cannot be adjusted by diplomatic agency may be 
referred to arbitration. Id all, the United States have taken part 
in twelve great arbitrations. Ten of these were arbitrations of dis- 



VENEZUELA 129 

putes with Great Britain. Also, we have acted as arbiters in six 
international disputes. 

''In no case have the United States ever refused arbitration. In 
no case have they made war, except for independence and self-preserva- 
tion. Those facts go far toward assuring peace as an outcome of the 
Venezuela case. 

''But the chief danger was passed when England recognized the 
American Commission now sitting at Washington. That was really 
the first step toward arbitration. 

"When England accepted our commission, when she made a courte- 
ous and tactful offer of facihties, she insured a peaceful settlement 
of the question. She might have refused to recognize the commission. 
She not only did recognize it, but she also submitted her claim and 
case to it with all the evidence in her possession. 

"You may feel assured that the decision of the American Commis- 
sion, composed of four judges and scholars, will be as fair and judicial 
as would be the result reached by any four of your own judges. The 
American Commission, gentlemen, will justify both the moderation 
ai^d the confidence of the British Government. 

"The outcome will be peace; peace with a better understanding, 
with friendher good will, with kindher feehng. 

"But I hope and beheve that both nations will provide against 
the recurrence of such a crisis. 

"If you will vigorously carry on yom* campaign of education you 
can make it most improbable that any government will refuse to arbi- 
trate such trifling disputes again. 

^^But as to the future danger, let ws trust that there mil be either a treaty 
or a tribunal making it impossible for the two nations to go to war about 
any issue that does not involve the national existence. 

" Civihzation means that disputes and differences, whether individual 
or international, shall be settled by reason or by some judicial process, 
and not by force. Civihzation is no more possible without peace 
than permanent peace is possible without arbitration. Yet it does 
not mean peace at any price. 

"There are certain issues that are not arbitrable. War against a 
cruel despotism or slavery Americans regard as not only just, but as 
inevitable. 

"They beheve in the French Revolution, They naturally sympa- 
thize with the uprising of any people against despotism, whether in 
Greece or Hungary or Poland in the past; or in Cuba to-day. 

"I cannot help feehng that you, as Enghshmen, share with the 
Americans at least in some of these sympathies. I have always 
held it one of England's greatest glories, almost equal to her matchless 



130 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

literature, almost equal to her genius for conquest, colonization and 
government in the remotest parts of the globe, unsurpassed since the 
days of the Romans, that for a century she has been for all Europe 
the strong place of refuge for poHtical offenders. 

"She, with Switzerland, has been practically the only European 
asylum for liberty-loving revolutionists and political exiles. She 
has protected all aUke, whether anarchist or monarchist, whether 
rebel or pretender to a throne. And since England has shown this 
devotion to pohtical freedom, EngHshmen will understand a similar 
spirit in America. 

"However we may differ on many questions, we have common 
sympathies for liberty and humanity, just as we have a common 
language. 

" We speak, we read, we think, we feel, we hope, we love, we pray — 
aye, we dream — in the same language. The twentieth century is dawning. 
Let us dream that it will realize our ideals and the higher destiny of 
mankind, 

"Let us dream not of hideous war and butchery, of barbarism and 
darkness, bid of enlightenment, progress and peace." 



o 



THE BOND RING 

1896 

Two Splendid Journalistic Exploits in Three Weeks — Vast Profit of the 
Morgan Syndicate on the February, 1895, Bond Sale — Failure to Protect 
the Government from the ^'Endless Chain'' of Gold Depletion — ^'The 
World's'' Offer of $1,000,000 for Bonds — Its Telegrams to Bankers 
Throughout the Country Produce Hundreds of Millions of Offers for 
the Securities at Open Sale — The Ring Defeated — Immense Success of the 
Offered Bonds — How Republicanism Was Driven to Become the Sound- 
Money Party — Dilemma of the Democratic Press. 

Not until the appearance of Mr. Cleveland's message, 
on December 18, 1895, did the Venezuela crisis become 
acute. 

Within the next twenty days The World had not only 
powerfully aided the cause of peace and friendship with 
Great Britain, but had halted another of Mr. Cleveland's 
blunders and had saved to the federal Treasury millions 
of dollars. 

The calendar threw the service to the nation in the 
Venezuela matter into 1895 and the breaking of the Bond 
Ring into 1896, but both these exploits were crowded 
into three splendid weeks. 

The Bond Ring, the silver craze, the tariff struggle, and 
the financial panic of 1893-97 were interrelated. The 
Treasury surplus had disappeared, partly dissipated by 
Republican extravagance, partly because of the reduction 
of importation and the curtailing of private expenditure 
during the panic, more directly because of the failure 
of revenue through the decision of the Supreme Court 



132 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

annulling the income tax. But Congress in 1895, with 
the House heavily Republican, the Republicans in the 
Senate slightly overbalanced by Democrats and Popu- 
lists, and with both parties warring over silver, was in 
no mood for sane finance. 

The World had a simple plan for replenishing the 
Treasury. It was to put another dollar a barrel of in- 
ternal-revenue tax on beer and to levy some slight stamp 
taxes such as those imposed during the Spanish war. 
But neither party was disposed to do away with the 
deficit. To both it seemed useful. The Republicans 
employed it as an excuse for increasing tariff exactions 
under the guise of a revenue measure. The Populists and 
the silver Democrats, now in control of their party, almost 
welcomed any calamity which could emphasize a demand 
for radical cures. 

In February, 1895, to maintain the failing reserve, the 
Treasury had privately sold bonds at a low price to a 
syndicate headed by J. P. Morgan, which undertook to 
import part of the gold for the purchase. The syndicate 
was also to ^'protect" the government by some mysterious 
method which failed to operate; the drain of gold from the 
Treasury continued, and an ''endless chain'' of with- 
drawals worked in favor of new bond issues. As early 
as August 15, 1895, The World warned Mr. Cleveland and 
Secretary Carlisle: 

In any event the Government should not again be caught 
napping. If there shall be necessity for selling bonds they 
should be sold in time and in the open market at something 
like their real value. The Government should not again allow 
itself to be ''cornered." It should not again sell bonds to a 
syndicate for 1043^ which the people are eager to take at 
120 or more. 

The Morgan participants' undertaking to protect the 
government reserves was impossible in the face of inade- 



THE BOND RING 133 

quate revenues and a vast outstanding mass of convert- 
ible greenbacks; it was also against their interests as 
merchants seeking another opportunity to buy the obliga- 
tions of the nation. ^^The men/' said The Yiorld, '^who 
undertook to protect the reserve in return for many 
millions of profit on bonds worth 120 which they got at 
1043^ will have no interest after October 1st except to 
deplete the reserve as rapidly as possible and thus compel 
another deal.'' On December 26th, immediately after 
the publication of the Christmas messages on Venezuela 
from British public men, The World turned to its fight 
with the Treasury. Congress, not the President, it said, 
should judge what should be done. ^'And especially 
there should be no further costly dickers with a bond 
syndicate, even under the pretense now put forth at 
Washington that the underwriting of a syndicate is nec- 
essary to make sure of a sufficient bond subscription." 

No public notice was given that the Treasury was pre- 
paring for another bond issue, but evidence lay upon 
the surface of affairs in Washington. Chronicling the 
fact, The World said: 

It certainly should not be another bond ''deal" like that 
which discredited the nation last February. The credit of the 
country is immeasurably greater now than it was in the sixties, 
the seventies or the eighties. Yet on a small loan of sixty odd 
millions it sold its 4-per-cents to a syndicate at a price which 
was suggestive of a greatly impaired credit. . . . The country 
wants no more of that sort of thing. 

By telegrams to banks and financial houses in every part 
of the country The World secured an immense mass of 
testimony that there would be no lack of subscriptions to 
a popular loan. Proof accumulated that the government 
was not ^^at the mercy of one individual." 

On January 3, 1896, in connection with a mass of tele- 
grams and other offers and pledges of capital for the pur- 



134 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

chase of bonds, The World played its trump card in the 
following editorial, one of those that have made history: 

To you, Mr. Cleveland, The World appeals. It asks you to 
save the country from the mischief, the wrong and the scandal 
of the pending bond deal. You only have power even yet to 
veto it. If it is consummated its memory will be a colossal 
scandal, and you will bear the blame. 

The needless waste of ten or fifteen millions in this transaction 
is not the only or even the chief objection to it. It involves 
something of immeasurably greater worth than any number 
of millions. It involves popular confidence in the integrity of 
the Government, that faith of the people in their rulers which 
is the life-blood of free institutions. 

You have not asked advice of the party leaders in Congress 
or out. The only person whose counsel you have taken is 
the bond-broker who has millions to make by inducing you to 
take his advice. His lawyer, who was formerly your partner, 
is in Washington to help his secret deal. 

James T. Woodward, President of the Hanover Bank, has 
also been in Washington, and he is publicly known to have 
accumulated $4,000,000 in gold in expectation of the exorbitant 
profit of this deal. 

Mr. Stillman, of the National City Bank, who has also been 
at the capital to help on the dicker, has a hoard of $8,000,000 
in gold to invest in the speculation. 

Secrecy of negotiation under such circumstances awakens, 
unjustly, suspicions against the honor of the Government itself. 
These suspicions are more threatening to the stability of our 
institutions than the enmity of any foreign foe could be. The 
most damaging thing that could happen to the Republic is 
the lodgment of conviction in the people's mind that ours has 
become a Government by Syndicates for SjTidicates. 

Trust the people, Mr. Cleveland! You can get all the gold 
you need in Europe at 1 per cent., or less, premium. You can 
get it in our own country without paying any premium at all. 
An issue of $50,000,000 in bonds, ample for present needs, 
would be subscribed by the public many times over at 3 per 
cent., or on a 3-per-cent. basis. 



THE BOND RING 135 

So sure are we of this that The World now offers to head the 
list with a subscription of one million dollars on its own account. 
It will take that amount, and it will promptly find and furnish 
the gold with which to pay for the bonds. The whole country 
will respond with Uke alacrity. Europe will clamor for them. 
Trust the People, Mr. Cleveland, 

And smash the Ring! 

The World recalled the war-time spirit which had made 
subscription for government bonds a patriotic service. 
''The millions involved as a loss to the people are as 
nothing/^ it pointed out, ''compared with the calamity of 
disgust. Better a hundred millions lost, or a thousand, 
than that the people of the Republic shall doubt the 
integrity of the Government and learn to believe that 
money has taken the place of manhood as the controlling 
force in the nation." 

Late in the evening of January 5th the President and 
Secretary Carlisle yielded. The private bargain was 
abandoned. A public bond sale was decided upon. As 
The World said in promptly acknowledging the President's 
act, Mr. Cleveland had "preserved the public credit and 
maintained the national credit." 

Two strong New York banks in the Bond Ring with- 
drew on January 9th. "V^Tien the bonds were bid for in 
early February the entire issue of $100,000,000 — larger 
than had been contemplated — ^was oversubscribed nearly 
six times. "The organizer of the syndicate," as was 
chronicled, "bid over $6,000,000 more for the $100,000,000 
of bonds than he negotiated to get them for in December." 
The World^s own bid was $114, the highest received except 
for small amounts. The price of the new issue soon rose; 
two weeks later a bidder offered $114.50 for $5,000,000 
of "lapsed-bid" bonds, but under a ruling of the Treasury 
these were awarded to the Morgan syndicate for $110.6877. 

Despite this splendid success for the method of trusting 
the people, Mr. Cleveland could never see the blunder of 



136 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

the secret negotiations with Mr. Morgan. In an account 
pubHshed May 7, 1904, of the bond transactions of his 
administration he defended the Morgan-Belmont contract 
on the ground that it '^required of them such labor, risk 
and expense as perhaps entitled them to a favorable 
bargain. ' ' ^ ^ I shall always recall with satisfaction and self- 
congratulation/' he added, ^^my collusion with them at a 
time when our coimtry sorely needed their aid.'' 

The WorWs response to this challenge, afterward pub- 
lished in pamphlet form, was a history of the ^' Great 
Bond Conspiracy." In this it showed that the value of 
United States bonds at the time of the February secret bar- 
gain was higher than that shown by any other government 
security in the world save only British consols; that 
under the February contract $60,000,000 in bonds were 
sold to the syndicate for $65,112,743 and immediately 
sold by it to the pubhc for $73,418,575; that the terms 
of the contract were arranged by Morgan's lawyer after a 
four-hour conference between Morgan and the President 
in the White House; that in all the war-time period of 
1861-65, when the nation was assailed and Europe looked 
hopefully for its dissolution, less commission was paid 
upon more than two billions of bonds than the Morgan 
syndicate cleared in this one secret bargain; that the 
operation of the ^'endless chain" drew from the Treasury 
$31,907,221 in gold in December, 1894, and $45,117,738 
in January, 1895; that, according to Mr. Cleveland's 
story of the White House conference, ^'He [Mr. Morgan] 
suddenly asked me why we did not buy $100,000,000 
in gold at a fixed price and pay for it in bonds under 
section 3700 of the Revised Statutes"; that, according 
to the same account, ^Hhe position of Mr. Morgan was 
that they were abundantly able not only to furnish 
the gold we needed, but to protect us in the manner 
indicated against its immediate loss" by bond specu- 
lators depleting the Treasury of gold in exchange for cur- 



THE BOND RING 137 

rency; that the price arranged for the issue was $104.49, 
though the bonds when issued rose to $119 1-8 within five 
days; that the syndicate broke its promise to obtain one- 
half the gold abroad, the total net gold imports for five 
months being only $15,000,000; that the new syndicate 
which The World smashed in January, 1896, was a ^' blind 
pool" invited by a private circular on December 31st; 
that Congress debated gravely The WorWs exposure of 
the deal and its offer to take $1,000,000 of the bonds on a 
3-per-cent. basis; that only six Senators out of fifty-four 
voted against an investigation of secret bond deals; that 
in smashing the ring The World sent out 10,370 telegrams, 
prepaying answers; that the 5,300 replies broke the 
Western Union record of messages in one day forwarded 
to any person or corporation; that as a result of the 
offers The World was able to pledge over $235,000,000 in 
gold for the bonds; and that under its day-by-day urgings 
the sale became so successful that more than half a 
billion dollars were offered at rates averaging nearly 
$112 instead of $104.49. 

There were no more secret bond bargains. The system 
was broken. On February 6th, the day after the bond 
sale. The World said: 

The public loan is bid for nearly six times over. The credit 
of the Government is maintained. The financial independence 
of the Government is successfully demonstrated. The confi- 
dence, the resources and the patriotism of the people are splen- 
didly vindicated. That which The World predicted and pro- 
claimed has come to pass. The false assumptions of a scheming 
syndicate and the baseless claims of its servants and sympa- 
thizers are overthrown. It is indeed a "famous victory." 

Hard upon the heels of the Venezuela flurry and the 

breaking of the Bond Ring The World was called upon to 

face a difficult poHtical dilemma. By the middle of 

February the hopelessness of avoiding a fight upon the 
10 



138 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

silver issue became apparent. The House had passed for 
election purposes a tariff bill which the Senate tabled by a 
decisive vote. The Senate, in turn, had passed a free- 
silver bill to which the House gave a quietus. 

On February 25th and 26th the silver Republican Sena- 
tors bolted their party, giving notice ''with two demonstra- 
tions of their ability to carry out their purpose, that they 
will not permit even the consideration of any tariff legis- 
lation until their demand for free silver coinage at the 
ratio of sixteen to one is granted." 

In consequence of this state of affairs in Washington 
The World predicted the nomination of William McKinley 
by the Republicans: 

The bosses are already beaten. Quay, Piatt, Clarkson, 
Manley, Reed and the rest are still planning and bargaining 
and arranging trades, but the masses of the Republican party 
have taken the matter out of their hands, and in spite of them 
McKinley will be nominated — not improbably on the first 
ballot — perhaps even by acclamation. 

The bosses are beaten, and we are glad of it: 

1. Because it is always well for the people to beat the bosses. 

2. Because McKinley is the only Republican candidate who 
represents a principle in national politics, the only one whose 
candidacy will mean what the party means, the only one whose 
candidacy will be an honest reflection of the party's principles 
and purposes. 

3. Because he is the most vulnerable of all possible Republi- 
can candidates. His nomination will put directly in issue 
the only principle or policy on which his party really has any 
conviction, and the people of the country are so well informed 
respecting that policy and so hostile to it that a campaign 
against him will be a fight in the open, with better hope of 
success than any fight under cover of equivocations could offer. 

Breaking a precedent, the national convention of the 
party out of power was first to be held. This gave pre- 
cedence in initiative to one of the most remarkable men 



THE BOND RING 139 

that have arisen in American poUtics. Writing at a later 
date, when Mark Alonzo Hanna's achievement was known 
of all men, The World described his methods, and forecast 
the dangers inherent in the new standards he set for party 
management: 

Mr. Hanna has managed McKinley's campaign from the 
first precisely as he would manage any other business enter- 
prise. There are men who make a business of polities. Mark 
Hanna has made politics a business. If he were to undertake 
the work of combining forty-five iron foundries in a trust he 
would pursue substantially the same methods that he has 
employed in consoHdating into an irresistible mass the Mc- 
Kinley strength in forty-five States. The same tactics that he 
adopted in breaking down the Sailors' Union on the great 
lakes he has displayed in crushing the bosses' combination 
against McKinley. . . . 

It is impossible to conceive of the Democrats or the Whigs 
of forty or fifty years ago submitting the direction of the 
Presidential nomination and the phrasing of the platform to 
the *' management" of a rich iron contractor who had never 
held an office, made a speech, written a line, or contributed a 
political idea toward the government of the country. 

Is Hanna more than a passing episode? Has the new style 
of management in national politics come to stay? Are the 
multi-millionaires who have substituted monopoly for compe- 
tition in business to apply their method and their money 
directly to politics, acting in person instead of through agents, 
as heretofore? 

New York had a candidate for the Republican nomina- 
tion, Levi P. Morton. It had had a more amazing one 
when, eight years earlier, it had cast its votes and those 
of recruits from other states for Chauncey M. Depew. 
A man of another stamp was pressed by New England 
delegates in Thomas B. Reed — '^Czar Reed" of the 
Speakership quarrel, a big, broad-gauge man of fine 
brain and mordant humor, a tariff Republican of the old 



140 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

school, but no puppet of trusts. Morton was, as The 
World phrased it, ' ' merely a courtesy candidate/ ' For the 
rest, it again remarked on March 25th that ^'McEjnley 
and Reed are the only real candidates, and McKinley will 
be nominated on the first ballot/' 

The World was an independent Democratic paper. 
It had given many proofs of its independence, but in 
national affairs it desired the success of the party from 
which alone a sane tariff might be expected. So late 
as the meeting of the Republican national convention 
it still hoped against hope that Democracy might be 
saved from free silver as by a miracle of grace and win 
a national triumph under the banners of tariff reform and 
honest money. If that were impossible, the best it could 
hope was that both parties would compromise upon silver 
to tempt back alienated votes and retain the wavering, 
and that delay until the panic should be past might save 
the situation. 

For once, therefore, it departed from its rule of desiring 
the candidates and platforms of both parties to be on as 
high a level as possible, and rejoiced in McKinley's own 
shakiness upon the silver issue. Shaky he was, probably 
confused as to the right, certainly cautious of offending 
silver voters. As recently as the 27th of October, 1890, 
he had made this formal profession of faith: ^'I am in 
favor of the use of all the silver product of the United 
States for money as circulating medium. I would have 
silver and gold alike.'' 

Hanna caused to be inserted in the Ohio Republican 
platform a ^^ straddle" resolution, approved by McKinley, 
demanding ''the use of both gold and silver as standard 
money" under restrictions ''to be determined by legis- 
lation" if international consent could not be had. This 
was supposed to blaze the path the greater convention 
would tread in June, but before that month Democratic 
state conventions in the West had adopted such an 



THE BOND RING 141 

extreme attitude upon silver as to make it unlikely that 
a straddle resolution would hold many ardent silverites. 
In the reverse direction Eastern Republican and Demo- 
cratic conventions alike were taking pronounced stand 
for honest money. The breach was widening; the parties 
were realigning upon the new issue. 

Whatever lingering doubts Hanna may have had were 
dispelled, when the convention met, by Piatt and others 
from the East; and when McKinley was named for Presi- 
dent upon the first ballot a platform had already been 
adopted pledging the party ^'unreservedly for sound 
money '^ and specifying its opposition 'Ho the free coinage 
of silver except by international agreement with the 
leading commercial nations of the world." 

What would Democracy do? 

It was a question bristling with difficulties. The 
World's proprietor in 1884 had seen the chief Democratic 
paper in New York dragged down in three months from 
its high place for opposing the candidate of its party in 
a national election, vacating the leadership which The 
World occupied. That was the material side of the 
problem. There was also the paramount study of public 
benefit. Democracy meant, or should mean, tariff 
reform. It meant, or should mean, the purifying of 
election machinery from corruption. Except in the city 
of New York the men in control of the Democratic party 
were more favorable than their adversaries to the reforms 
The World had at heart. Democracy held its briefs for 
equal opportunity and the downfall of privilege. Its 
name spelled progress. Was all this pressing, vital work 
of reform, of which a constitutional tariff was only the 
beginning, to be indefinitely postponed? Were the trusts 
and monopolies to gain out of a new lease of life the 
opportunity for fresh exactions, while the Democratic 
Quixote was tilting at windmills? 

To such a question there could be but one answer. 



142 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

^^Come what may, the first duty of The World is to fight 
and slay the dragon. To save the public credit, the public 
honor, the public fame — that is the instant need. Later 
there will be opportunities to promote the reforms for 
which the Democracy in its pure estate has the mandate 
and of which democracy has need.^^ 



XI 

FEEE SILVER 

1896 

Fiat Money in Previous Elections — Demonetization, "The Crime of '73" — 
Fall in Value of Silver Due to Increased Production — The Quantity 
Theory of Money — Why a Third Term for Cleveland Was Impossible — 
Republican Party Hesitant Upon Silver Until the Eve of the Convention — 
The Ohio McKinley Straddle — William J. Bryan's "Cross of Gold'' Speech 
and His Nomination — "The World's" Good-Natured Campaign — Rising 
Price of Wheat Confutes the Silver Argument — Senator Piatt and the 
Tammany Victory of 1897. 

Was there danger that free silver might prevail? 

By all rules of political analogy, yes. The alarm of 
business men in the summer of 1896 was justified. 

It needed no long memory to recall what had happened 
in previous periods of shrinking prosperity through oppo- 
sition to the resumption of specie payment. In 1878 a 
Greenback ticket received 55,000 votes in Texas and 
39,448 in Indiana. In 1880 Gen. James B. Weaver, 
Greenback candidate for President, had 307,306 votes, and 
a Fusion Greenback Governor of Maine was elected. 
In 1882 a Greenback candidate for Governor of Kansas 
polled 20,989 votes. A Democratic-Greenback Fusion 
movement carried Michigan three of the first five years 
of that decade. In 1892 General Weaver had 22 electoral 
votes and 1,041,028 popular votes on a People's party 
ticket. 

These movements, which won the suffrages of hundreds 
of thousands of honest men, contemplated ^^fiat money.'' 
The name was not with their partisans a reproach. They 



144 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

could see little difference between the government die- 
mark on a coin and its stamp on a paper promise to 
pay. 

Free silver made a higher intellectual appeal. The 
silver dollar was a historic fact. The ^^ crime of 1873" 
had demonetized silver only to the extent of forbidding 
the coinage of dollars which had not in fact been coined 
because silver had been too dear. But until 1873 the 
silver dollar had been legal. After that year, because of 
the very rapid increase in silver production, the market 
price fell rapidly. Under the Bland-AlHson Act coinage 
was resumed in 1878 at the rate of two miUion dollars a 
month. In 1890 the sound-money men in Congress, to 
head off free coinage, agreed to the Sherman compromise 
which committed the Treasury to buy four million five 
hundred thousand ounces of silver bullion a month. Only 
under pressure of the 1893 panic and by Mr. Cleveland's 
^^ patriotic unscrupulousness'^ in the use of patronage 
was this purchase act finally repealed. 

In July, 1893, The World thus stated the history of the 
case: 

The coinage law of 1792 authorized the unrestricted 
coinage of gold and silver at the ratio of 1 to 15. The ratio 
was changed by the acts of 1834 and 1837 to 1 to 16. Silver 
was demonetized in 1873 because it was dearer than gold. . . . 

In 1792, when the United States fixed the ratio of 1 to 15, 
an ounce of gold was worth 15.17 ounces of silver — ^more than 
the legal ratio. In 1834 the true ratio was 1 to 15.73 — less 
than the legal ratio of 1 to 16; in 1837 it was 1 to 15.83. 

The ratio kept changing, but all the time a silver dollar was 
worth more than a gold dollar. ... In 1873, when silver was 
demonetized, it was still too dear for the established ratio, 
the true ratio being 1 to 15.92. The next year it was 1 to 
16.17, and the silver dollar was cheaper than gold. In 1878 
what is falsely called the Bland law was passed, but the price 
of silver continued to fall, the true ratio in 1879 being 1 to 
18.40, The act of 1890, known as the Sherman act, did not 



FREE SILVER 145 

arrest the downward progress of silver. In 1891 the true 
ratio was 1 to 20.92; and now it is 1 to nearly 22. 

It was the contention of the free-silver men that we 
should coin silver bullion at any man's caU at the ratio of 
sixteen to one. This would have meant a new inflation, a 
new era of wild speculation, a new gold premium. That 
it would have meant a partial remission of debts was 
understood and approved by the silver men. They 
argued that men who had borrowed money previous to 
1879 were burdened by the resumption of specie payments 
with a heavier debt, measured in conunodities, than they 
had assumed. This hardship was a natural sequel to 
the war, to vast borrowings, to inflation, and to the 
recovery. Many who would have admitted this held 
that in demonetizing silver, in ^^ walking upon one leg,'' 
we were burdening debtors and creating a gold famine by 
overuse of the dearer metal. They attributed solely to 
demonetization the sensational fall in the price of silver 
poured from the Bonanza mines. 

Defenders of the gold standard trod dangerous ground 
when they assailed the quantity theory of money, on 
which the silver men relied: the theory that prices rise 
and fall in inverse proportion to the money in circulation. 
Denounced, then, by most American statesmen and 
nearly every American economist, this theory is now gen- 
erally accepted; gold and credit inflation is laden with 
much of the blame for the high cost of living. In The 
Purchasing Power of Money Professor Irving Fisher, of 
Yale, has sought to reduce to a mathematical formula 
the relation of circulating medium and instruments of 
credit to prices. Indeed, the present tendency seems to 
be to load upon inflation too great a share of the effect of 
many and complex causes. 

Prices of products had fallen after the demonetization 
of silver; the peasants of Germany and France were as 



146 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

well aware of that fact as the farmers of the United States. 
Self-interest and local feeling raised the silver agitation 
to boiling-point in the West, where wheat was grown and 
silver mined. Governor Waite of Colorado, an honest 
man and executive whom the East pictured as a monster, 
had said the people would ^'ride in blood to their horses' 
bridles'' rather than submit to Wall Street dictation on 
silver. In some Western states to doubt the wisdom of 
free coinage was to be a marked man. 

Had there been a fair chance of securing through the 
Republican organization laws to check corruption and a 
tariff not too predatory The World would have been ready- 
to follow McKinley with less misgiving. As it was, its 
efforts were bent upon seeking to delay the crisis. In 
its anxiety to strengthen the sound-money cause it had 
coquetted with the third term, and had said that ^^ There 
is nothing either in the Constitution or in history to forbid 
a third term for any President." 

But Cleveland had split his party. It was not alone 
because he would have represented the sound-money fac- 
tion that Democrats would have none of him. Nemesis 
was upon his trail, as she is wont to be with those who do 
wrong that right may follow. In toling Congress with 
patronage to halt silver coinage Cleveland had walked 
the spirit of faction. However praiseworthy his motives, 
his patronage bargains had roused in every state the anger 
of powerful anti-administration groups who in many cases 
cared less for free silver than they did for rebuking the 
President. Mr. Cleveland had done his work but he 
had closed his own political career. 

So when in June the Republican platform gave notice 
that the party would no longer, in Chairman Carter's 
phrase, ''plow round the silver stump" nothing could 
stem the inflation onslaught at Chicago. The Sound- 
money Democrats had the National Committee, and 
when the convention met on July 7th nominated Senator 



FREE SILVER 147 

Hill of New York for chairman. The convention by 
556 to 349 rejected Hill and chose Senator Daniel of 
Virginia. By 628 to 301 it adopted a platform declaring 
for ''free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold" 
at sixteen to one without waiting for the ''consent of any 
other nation." 

Another plank criticized the decision of the Supreme 
Court on the income tax. Another denounced "arbitrary 
interference by federal authorities in local affairs," a re- 
buke to President Cleveland for sending soldiers to 
Chicago during the Pullman strike. Another decried 
national-bank currency. 

In the debate upon this platform a picturesque incident 
occurred that was to give to the cause of free silver, 
which had already so many elements of strength, one of 
the great public leaders of American history. 

William Jennings Bryan, a member of Congress, 1891- 
96, and in 1896 an editor in Omaha, was one year past the 
age of thirty-five, which an American President must 
have attained, when the Democratic convention met in 
Chicago. He was a member of a contested delegation 
representing the silver men in Nebraska, and his delega- 
tion was admitted by the convention: 

There are three or four speeches in American history 
which by phrase or circumstance have left an unusual 
impress upon the imagination. In the Virginia Legisla- 
ture, and again in the Continental Congress, Patrick 
Henry uttered an unforgotten sentence. Half a sentence 
by John Adams lives in most men's memories. What 
Webster's reply to Hayne was many know in effect, 
though few can quote it. Lincoln's address at Gettys- 
burg is an inspiration to patriotism. But has any 
other speech delivered upon New World soil ever had 
such an effect upon events as that of Mr. Bryan in the 
vast auditorium in Chicago during the debate upon the 
silver plank — that speech which closed, "You shall not 



148 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; 
you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold '7 

It may become legendary that the speech stampeded 
the convention. This was not the case. No nomination 
was made until the following day; even then five ballots 
were necessary. But on the first ballot the hero of the 
^^ cross of gold'' was second only to Richard P. Bland, the 
putative author of the silver bill of 1878. Votes were also 
cast for Governor Pattison of Pennsylvania; Governor 
Blackburn of Kentucky; Governor Boies, of Iowa; 
John R. McLean, of Ohio; Claude Matthews; Benjamin 
R. Tillman, of South Carolina; William E. Russell, of 
Massachusetts; Governor Pennoyer of Oregon; and 
David B. Hill. When after the fifth ballot Bryan lacked 
twelve votes of a two-thirds majority the other silver 
delegates swung to him and the nomination was made. 
In the search for a wealthy man as running-mate John 
R. McLean led for four ballots, but the choice fell upon 
Arthur Sewall, of Maine. 

The Silver party, now of small consequence, nominated 
Bryan and Sewall; the Populists, Bryan and Thomas E. 
Watson, of Georgia. 

With the glamour of his sudden upspring, his spotless 
reputation, his youth, his beauty, his earnestness, his 
wonderful voice, his power of swaying assemblies, Mr. 
Bryan was the strongest candidate the Silver Democracy 
could have named. 

The Gold Democrats met in Indianapolis on September 
2d, adopted the name of the National Democratic party, 
and, after the refusal of their nomination by General 
Bragg, of Wisconsin, put Palmer and Buckner in the 
field. In the choice The World was now forced to make it 
was not alone, and deserves no especial credit among 
Eastern Democratic journals. What did single it out in 
effectiveness was the vigor and moderation of its campaign 
and the numbers to whom its economic teachings brought 



FREE SILVER 149 

conviction. As Colonel A. K. McClure says in Our 
Presidents and How We Make Them: 

A number of the leading newspapers of the country which had 
supported Cleveland in his three contests repudiated the Chicago 
platform and its candidate, and they stood in the forefront of American 
journalism. . . . Not one of them ever had conference or communica- 
tion with the McKinley leaders, or received or proposed any terms 
for their support, or ever sought, accepted, or desired favors from the 
McKinley administration. Some of them suffered pecuniary sacrifice, 
but they performed a heroic duty, and it was the inspiration they 
gave to the conservative Democratic sentiment of the country that 
made McKinley President by an overwhelming majority. 

In reviewing the campaign of The World one is struck 
by its good nature. It did not bandy epithets. It did 
not say the silver leaders were scoundrels or brand six 
million voters as thieves. It conducted a campaign of 
education, and it foresaw the rout that would follow. 
^'The World has warned Democrats,^' it said, ^Hhat the 
adoption of the free-silver heresy would be suicide." 
But ^* parties may commit suicide for a year, for two or 
four years. The duration of the suspended animation of 
the Democratic party will depend in some measure upon 
its canvass, but more upon the spirit in which it shall accept 
the discipline of defeat." Chiding later a too zealous ally, 
it describes a better plan for the contest, the plan that 
would leave fewest wounds and soonest lead back to 
union : 

[The Silverites'j outbreak is a craze, a species of hysteria, 
but there may be lunacy and hysteria displayed in abusing 
them, as our contemporary is demonstrating by example. 

Let us trust the people. Let us reason with them and teach 
them. There remain over a hundred days before election. 

In its educational campaign the most straightforward 
methods were used by The World. Such was the ''Shorter 
Silver Catechism," in method as follows: 



150 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Q. What silver-standard countries have free coinage? 
A. Not one. There is not in all the world a mint open to the 
free coinage of silver at any ratio. 

Q. Does not Mexico coin all silver brought to her mints? 
A. Yes; but she charges S4.41 for each one hundred coins, and 
the coinage is at 16.51 to 1, so that she recoins European silver 
at a cost to the holder of about 10 per cent., and American 
silver at a cost of 7 per cent. [Mexico is now practically on a 
gold basis.] 

Q. Does not India coin free silver? A. No. The mint was 
closed three years ago. 

Q. Does not Japan coin free? A. No. The mint closed 
some years ago. It coins subsidiary silver on Government 
account, as all mints do. 

Perhaps The World deserved some gratitude from 
Republicans who were almost by accident the directors 
of the honest-money fight. It asked nothing except upon 
public grounds. It demanded of these leaders, ^^ Do they 
lack the discretion or the power to keep Hanna, with his 
money-bags, his fat-friers, and his professional corrup- 
tionists, out of sight?'' It urged Mr. McKinley to take 
an advanced stand upon the trust question, to make more 
endurable his necessary election. It rebuked him when 
he spoke of Matt Quay as ^Hhat distinguished leader and 
unrivaled Republican organizer whose devotion to Re- 
publicanism has never wavered." 

Odd as the fact may appear now, Mr. McKinley and 
Mark Hanna had planned to make the campaign chiefly 
upon the tariff. They had so thoroughly assimilated the 
lesson of the Democratic defeat of 1894 that they did 
not at first realize how much more potent an issue fate 
had thrust into their reluctant hands. Mr. Bryan put 
the country under an obligation^ he performed a public 
service quite other than he intended, when he made the 
silver issue prominent and thus opened the way for its 
decisive settlement. Tariff reformer as he was, in his 



FREE SILVER 151 

first speech in the "enemy's country'' of New York he 
made no reference to the tariff but insisted upon the issue 
of free coinage. In August The World told him: 

You can be elected if you will give sound reasons convincing 
the country that you stand for law and order, and that there 
is no occasion to fear precipitate, radical, and wholly experi- 
mental action upon the currency as the result of your success, 
and at the same time pledge yourself to enforce the anti-trust 
laws, to secure their amendment wherein they are deficient, 
and to use all the power of the executive ofiice to protect the 
people from the injustice and wrongs from which they now 
suffer. 

^ Mr. Bryan could see little but the silver question. The 
World labored to get him upon firmer fighting-ground 
with the tariff and the trusts. It reminded him that there 
were in New York ;^1, 732,382 depositors in savings- 
banks, or 130,000 more than its voters at the last Presi- 
dential election, and asked how they would like the 
"free - silver attitude toward their savings." It ap- 
plauded John Boyd Thacher when, nominated for Gov- 
ernor by the Democratic state convention, he refused to 
run as a candidate of a repudiation party; but it advised 
him that he could make his protest stronger by staying on 
the ticket and "standing by his honest repudiation of the 
repudiators of Democracy." 

Six weeks before election it seemed any man's race. 
Republican victories in Maine and Vermont in the early 
elections gave the sound-money men assurances of success. 
But a circumstance more potent for victory was a gradual 
lightening of the commercial skies with growing prices 
for produce. The most telling proof of this was thus 
noted on October 18th: "A month ago wheat was worth 
sixty-four cents in New York. Yesterday it was worth 
eighty-two cents." Silver continued to decline. Wheat 
in a month had advanced twenty-eight per cent. ; far off 



152 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

and faint the hard-pressed farmer began to see glimmering 
daylight. 

Mr. Bryan received the greatest vote ever cast for a 
Democrat. Six and a half million men supported him 
to the last; yet McKinley^s majority was more than 
six hundred thousand votes at the polls and ninety-five 
in the electoral college. What the victory involved, 
what their dilemma had meant to independent Democrats, 
The World thus recounted: 

It was a terrible choice for Democrats. On one side the regu- 
lar ticket of their party, on a platform undemocratic in almost 
every plank, and dangerous and dishonest in many, but repre- 
senting a recognition of some very real grievances and wrongs 
of the people. On the other side was a candidate embodying 
in an odious degree the policy of protection for bounties and 
a tariff for trusts, and of reckless extravagance in the public 
expenditures. But feeling that the honor and credit of the 
nation, the independence of its judiciary, and the supremacy 
of the national authority were issues of vital importance, lifting 
the contest far above the plane of party contention, these 
patriotic Democrats threw their votes on the side of their 
country. 

To this thought The World often returned. On No- 
vember 19th it noted that Carl Schurz and William L. 
Wilson had on the same day ^'felt it incumbent upon 
them to deliver to the country the same strenuous message 
of counsel and warning.'' They had warned the people 
that '' behind the late outbreak of Populism there was a 
cause deeper than any reckless whim, more earnest than 
a mere desire for change.'' There were ^^real wrongs, 
real grievances, real oppressions to be righted." 

It was in part because of this sympathetic treatment of 
the issues that The World could say of cts own course, 
^' never before in a Presidential campaign had the leading 
newspaper of either party declined to support the ticket 



FREE SILVER 153 

and platform presented by the politicians, not only with- 
out loss of power and prestige, but actually with a gain in 
both." 

But only at fearful public cost had silver been defeated. 
Mark Hannahs campaign of debauchery had passed all 
limits. What Senator Thomas C. Piatt much later called 
''moral obligations" had been assumed toward illegal 
corporations that hampered the government for years. 
In New York Frank Black rode into office upon the 
shoulders of McKinley, a bright, shrewd man with a 
cynical conception of public morals, who as Governor 
angered the state by naming Lou Payn, ''a notorious, 
confessed and branded lobbyist," as superintendent of 
insurance, and by announcing that the civil-service law 
would ''work better with less starch," but who was 
dropped by Piatt after a single term. 

With a Republican administration the plans of Blaine 
and Harrison for the annexation of Hawaii were revived, 
and The World found itself in 1897 engaged in a desperate 
fight against "leprosy and loot. " "Do we really need to 
go fifty-six hundred miles away for another rotten 
borough?" it asked. "Have we not difficulties enough in 
assimilating our immense immigration from every quarter 
of the globe without taking in the mongrel population of 
this remote island in the Pacific?" 

The annexation movement justified criticism. The 
sugar barons were interested in getting inside the tariff 
barriers against their plantations in the islands. John 
Sherman was placed in the State Department with 
President McKinley^s law partner, William R. Day, as 
his assistant secretary and the real power. Sherman was 
won over to annexation by the pretense that Japan, not 
then Russians conqueror or a naval power, was about to 
seize the group. Senator Hoar, "who has the courage 
to refuse to dishonor himself at the bidding of the leprous 
Administration Hawaiian Ring," introduced a protest 



154 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

against annexation signed by 21,869 native Hawaiians. 
The traders and missionaries' sons who made up the 
provisional government, of which Sanford B. Dole was 
president, had no notion of a republican form of govern- 
ment, and admitted less than four thousand men to the 
vote. Yet it was in vain for The World to protest in the 
words of Jefferson to Madison that ^^ nothing should ever 
be accepted which would require a navy to defend it," or 
to denounce the obliquity of a republic ruling. other men 
without those other men's consent. Before annexation 
came to a decision in Congress we were in the midst of the 
Spanish war, opposition would have been quixotic, and 
the job went through almost without protest. 

The enactment of a new tariff of excessive protection 
was another blow the country sustained by the surrender 
of Democracy to free silver. The election of 1896 had 
of course retained the House of Representatives in full 
control of the Republicans; it had given them just short 
of a majority in the Senate, but enough of the considerable 
third-party contingent — Populists and independent silver 
men — were in sympathy with their tariff views to make 
their course clear. A tariff bill had been practically 
framed by the Republican Ways and Means Committee 
before the administration was changed on March 4, 1897, 
and at the special session which soon assembled for the 
purpose the Dingley bill was passed. 

'^Of course," said The World, 'Hhere is the rational way 
out — namely, to let the tariff alone and raise the needed 
extra revenue by imposing additional taxes on beer, and 
some revenue imposts upon bank-checks, title-deeds and 
like agencies for the transfer of wealth" — exactly what 
was done the following year. But, ^^ elected to power 
by the aid of Democratic votes for the sole purpose of 
conserving the financial integrity of the nation," Congress 
devoted itself to ^Hhe framing of a tariff for robbery 
chiefly." Yet The World foresaw the success of the 



FREE SILVER 155 

undertaking, even with a narrowly divided Senate. Here 
was one of the remaining disservices which the silver 
agitation in its decadence could do the country: 

Even with the vote of the Sugar Democrat, McEnery, the 
Republicans are in a minority of one. 

Why, then, will [the Dingley bill] pass the Senate? 

First — Because some of the Silver party and Populist oppo- 
nents of the bill believe that by letting the Republicans alone 
they will make political capital for ''16 to 1" in 1898 and 1900. 

Second — Because the direct personal agents of the Silver 
Trust are voting for the bill. These agents hold the balance 
of power. They make opposition useless. 

These two reasons for the coming carnival of plunder are at 
bottom one — silver. 

If the monopolists who swung the Republican party 
were prompt to take their fees in the Dingley bill it was 
left to one of their agents. Senator Piatt of New York, 
to work a mischief to the metropolis which gave The 
World the opportunity for the hardest hitting it had done 
in a political campaign since 1892. 

The Act of Consolidation of Greater New York, which 
owed much to The World's advocacy and which both 
Boss Piatt and Boss Croker had delayed as long as they 
dared, had passed; the charter was enacted early in 1897, 
and the first election was to take place in November. 
Brooklyn and old New York had Republican mayors. 
Assuming that the party, with the prestige of its enmity 
to free silver, would hold its advantage, the Republican 
Legislature had arranged for the new Mayor a four- 
year term and wide powers. Fusion with independent 
Democrats was expected, and it was supposed that the 
Republican machine would accept Seth Low, a Republican 
who had been Mayor of Brooklyn for two terms and was 
now president of Columbia University. 

There were two reasons — one of them a real reason — 



156 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

why Piatt was not enthusiastic about Mr. Low. The real 
reason was that he could not control him. Another 
plausible reason was that in 1884 Mr. Low had been 
unwilling to share in the Blaine campaign. He had said 
that the Mayor of Brooldyn had no vote, and that Seth 
Low would vote as he pleased. He did vote for Blaine 
and Logan, but he was not sufficiently convinced of the 
wisdom of Blaine's election to take part in the campaign. 
Now, with the citizens' organizations uniting upon Low, 
this ancient grievance was made an excuse for separate 
Republican action. Low was nominated; Mr. Piatt 
preferred defeat with a ^^ straight '^ candidate to victory 
with Low, and his convention put up Judge Tracy, a law 
partner of Piatt's son. 

For Tannnany, victory with three candidates would be 
easy. This was Croker's position: ^^The man I name 
must be, first, a man who voted for Bryan last year. 
He must be a member of Tammany Hall — a regular 
member of that organization. He must be a regular 
machine man, and, what is more, a man whom I control." 
Nevertheless, The World, true to its rule of neglecting no 
faintest hope of serving the city, begged Croker to name 
a ^'Democratic Low," a '^ reformer who has done things," 
the man who helped send McKane to prison, Judge 
Gaynor, instead of '^a mere puppet of the boss." 

One result of the convention was amusing. The World 
had offered a prize for anj^ person who could name in 
advance Croker's candidate for Mayor. The day after 
the Tammany city convention it said: ''This reward has 
not been earned by anybody. Among the multitudinous 
responses, in which almost every possible Tammany 
candidate was named, there was not one which held the 
name of Judge Robert A. Van Wyck." Judge Van 
Wyck was to this extent acceptable — he was unknown. 
He was not conspicuous enough to have made enemies. 
But whatever his personal qualities, he would sit in 



FREE SILVER 157 

the Mayor^s chair as the representative of Richard 
Croker. 

A seething rage took possession of The World. After 
years of struggle a great ideahstic plan had been carried. 
A city, the second in the world and destined to be first, 
had been set up in the new continent. A liberal charter 
had been provided. The eyes of the world were upon 
it. And now a Republican boss and a Democratic boss 
were conspiring to turn over this great experiment in 
self-government to be smirched and well-nigh ruined! 
Here was no call for courtesy of phrase. The wrath of 
The World flamed in a series of appeals to the people to 
put away the shame that threatened. 

One little hope there was, and that faded. There were 
in the field, besides Low, Tracy, and Van Wyck, two other 
candidates: Mayor ^'Big Paf Gleason of Long Island 
City, a picturesque character who would draw local sup- 
port, and Henry George. Mr. George entered the cam- 
paign to aid Low and to save the city. He overtaxed his 
strength and on the eve of election died. To him The 
World paid sincere tribute : 

He died as he lived. He died a hero's death. He died as 
he would have wished to die — on the battle-field, spending 
his last strength in a blow at the enemies of the people. 

Liberty has lost a friend. Democracy has lost a leader! 

Henry George^s son, then thirty-five years old, was 
nominated to succeed his father. But Democrats by the 
thousand who had been held by Henry George went back 
to Tammany. The great city was put in Boss Croker's 
hands to sink to a depth only less abysmal than that 
remembered filth of Tweedism which had given the classic 
measure of municipal degradation. 

Van Wyck had 233,997 votes; Low, 151,540, on a 
Citizens' Union ticket; Tracy, 101,863; George, 21,693, 



158 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

In the city which had given McKinley more than sixty 
thousand majority the previous year the candidate of 
his party was a weak third. In the state which had 
given McKinley 268,000 majority the candidate of his 
party for judge of the Court of Appeals was beaten by 
more than sixty thousand. Small comfort was there, in 
this evidence of the wrath of the independent voter, for 
New York, thrown under the wheels of juggernaut. 



XII 

A WAR FOE AN IDEAL 

1898-1899 

What Caused the War with Spain — "The World" as a Military Critic — 
The Firm Friendship of Britain in the Crisis — First News of the Battle 
of Manila — The Arrival of "The Man on Horseback" — Theodore Roosevelt 
and Boss Piatt — Forcing the Franchise Tax — Ramapo and Rapid Transit 
— Great Britain and the Boer War — President Kruger's Appeal to "The 
World" — Prompt Protests Against Imperialism. 

In slavery days Southern politicians had cast longing 
eyes upon Cuba for the reason that they forced the 
Mexican war, to strengthen the political power of the 
slave states. Cuba, with its immense sugar plantations, 
was the last considerable stronghold of slavery in the 
New World. The Spanish authorities had ruled the 
island brutally, corruptly, and in disregard of native 
public sentiment, so that filibustering expeditions from 
the United States, often winked at by the government, 
were welcomed. In Buchanan's administration the Os- 
tend Manifesto, announced in London, Paris, and Madrid 
by American ministers, stated that if Spain would not 
sell Cuba the United States would seize it — a policy that 
might have been carried out but for anticipated protests 
by other nations. 

When in 1895 a new rebellion broke out and when the 
Spanish authorities fought it by concentrado there was 
no longer any question of the slavery interest. There 
was simply a feeling that it was time for Spain to leave 
the continent. The war desire grew gradually for years; 



160 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

with the blowing up of the Maine, it burst into sudden 
flame. 

Captain-General Campos as early as November 1, 1895, 
had cabled his government that ^4f this war is not brought 
to a speedy termination by granting home rule to Cuba 
the United States will surely give aid to the insurgents 
and espouse their cause sooner or later." By the be- 
ginning of 1896 Congress was discussing the recognition 
of belligerent rights and offering Spain our '^friendly 
offices" for the composing of the trouble. In February, 
1897, The World was asking questions like these: 

How long is the peasantry of Spain to be drafted away to 
Cuba, to die miserably in a hopeless war, that Spanish nobles 
and Spanish officers may get medals and honors? 

How long shall old men and women and children be murdered 
by the score, the innocent victims of Spanish rage against the 
patriot armies they cannot conquer? 

How long shall American citizens, arbitrarily arrested while 
on peaceful and legitimate errands, be immured in foul Spanish 
prisons without trial? 

How long shall the navy of the United States be used as 
the sea-police of barbarous Spain? 

Little need be allowed for the rhetoric of passion in 
this indictment; it was true. Spain's policy in the 
New World was medieval, and the task of repressing 
overt acts of American sympathy was becoming more 
and more difficult. What "reconcentration" meant The 
World explained on May 16, 1897: 

The President sent a message to Congress yesterday asking 
for $50,000 with which to relieve or remove starving American 
citizens [in Cuba]. The message is thoroughly unsatisfactory. 
So is the form of relief proposed. These American citizens 
own plantations or work upon plantations of others. On these 
plantations there is plenty of food. But the military despot 
who rules Cuba will not let these Americans live upon the 



A WAR FOR AN IDEAL 161 

plantations. They are starving, not of any necessity, but 
solely by Weyler's abhorrent command. He has compelled 
them to leave their homes and go to the towns, where they 
have no bread- winning employment. . . . 

A resolute attitude on our part is all the excuse Spain needs 
for recalling the butcher Weyler and abandoning the inhuman 
purpose of making one of the fairest regions of the earth a 
depopulated desert, and calling that peace. 

The blowing up of the Maine removed the last hope 
of settlement by negotiation. Even then The World 
affected to believe that war was not inevitable, but in 
Spain it was becoming as hard to restrain public anger at 
the ^'Yankee pigs'' as it was in our own country to hold 
back the hotheads who wished Weyler driven into the sea. 

Now was seen the wisdom of The World and those who 
with it had protested against warlike passion in the 
Venezuela crisis. The British were openly sympathetic 
with us at Manila. The continent of Europe was strongly 
against us. The French ambassador, M. Jules Cambon, 
and the German ambassador, Baron von Holleben, con- 
certed in Washington a plan to involve Great Britain 
in an expression of this enmity. An identical despatch 
signed by the representatives of five continental powers, 
advising a joint European remonstrance against the war, 
was submitted to Lord Pauncefote, and he was induced to 
sign and present it by methods which may be left in 
dispute. It has even been charged that the despatch was 
^Moctored." Lord Salisbury ignored the paper when it 
was forwarded to him. Four years later sensational Ber- 
lin cablegrams, supposedly inspired, revealed Lord Paunce- 
fote's part in the transaction, and accused Great Britain 
of unfriendly action; neither Washington nor London 
was moved by the publication, and Von Holleben was 
recalled. Such friendship as that of Salisbury was worth 
much in 1898. 
No apologies for The World^s urgency that Cubs^ be freed 



162 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

by force will be necessary if that contest answered its 
description of a holy war : 

Is war always a crime? Are all wars unholy? 

History answers the question. The Declaration of Indepen- 
dence was a declaration of war, but it was not a crime. The 
war of the Revolution was not unholy. 

War waged by an alien power to, perpetuate its despotism 
over a subject race is always unholy. 

War waged in behalf of freedom, of self-government, of law 
and order, of humanity, to end oppression, misrule, plunder 
and savagery, is a holy war in itself. It is doubly justified 
if it is free from the taint of selfishness, the greed of acquisition, 
the lust of power. 

War was declared April 23d. Almost at once Admiral 
Dewey, in command of the Asiatic squadron, sailed for 
Manila. It was known that a battle must have taken 
place there, probably on May 1st. For six days the 
wildest rumors prevailed, but with Manila cut off from 
cable communication no authentic news was possible. 
Upon this tense period of waiting there broke, on the 
morning of May 7th, this despatch exclusively printed 
in The World j which gave the world its first information: 

Hongkong, May 7th. 
I have just arrived here on the United States revenue cutter 
Hugh McCullochj with my report of the great American triumph 
at Manila. 

, The entire Spanish fleet of eleven vessels was destroyed. 
' Three hundred Spaniards were killed and four hundred 
wounded. 
Our loss was none killed and but six slightly wounded. 
Not one of the American ships was injured. 

E. W. Harden, 
(World's Staff Correspondent.) 

This initial triumph of the war was speedily followed 
by other victories. The army was necessarily slow in 



A WAR FOR AN IDEAL 163 

attacking Cuba in force, but the navy began at once 
patrolling the waters about the ever-faithful isle, to 
which, in spite of silly fears of raids by Spanish ships 
along our Atlantic coast, it was reasonable to suppose 
Cervera's squadron of ships from Spain would be sent. 
On ]May 19th the Cervera squadron arrived in Santiago 
de Cuba and was almost at once bottled up. Lieutenant 
Hobson and a detachment of plucky naval volunteers 
sunk the Merrimac in the fairway, which did not com- 
pletely block the channel, but the Atlantic fleet of Admiral 
Sampson kept constant guard. General Shafter's army, 
assembled at Tampa and embarked at Key West, Florida, 
arrived at Daiquiri, Cuba, on June 20-22 and was almost 
immediately involved in actions at Las Guasimas and 
at El Caney on the outskirts of Santiago. On July 
1-2 the Spanish works at El Caney and San Juan were 
carried with relatively hea\'^' losses and on the following 
day Cervera's ships, attempting to escape from the 
harbor, were beached or sunk in a running fight. San- 
tiago was surrendered two weeks later. A little later 
still General Allies took Porto Rico almost without oppo- 
sition; and on August 13th, the day after the peace 
protocol was signed and armistice proclaimed, Manila 
surrendered to the American Pacific expedition with 
assistance from native revolutionists. 

Thus ended, except for long-dra^Ti-out campaigns with 
the Filipino insurgents, a war in which the hslyj had 
distinguished itself from first to last. The voyage of the 
Oregon from our Pacific coast right around South America 
in time to take part in the destruction of Cervera's fleet 
was one of the most striking proofs of efficiency in that 
ser^dce. Quite otherwise were the conditions in the War 
Department, where unreadiness and incompetency de- 
prived the administration of all the political advantage 
it might have expected to gain by the campaign. The 
Secretary of War, Gen. Russell A. Alger, was over- 



164 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

weighted by his sudden responsibiHty. Bad beef was 
foisted upon soldiers by army contractors. Military 
camps were laid out with such disregard of sanitary pre- 
cautions that commands that never went to Cuba almost 
rivaled the death-rate of those that did. Returning 
soldiers were placed in rest-camps not much better. The 
military experts of the world were amazed by the appear- 
ance during the Santiago campaign of a ^^ round robin'' 
signed by many officers of volunteer troops, including 
Colonel Roosevelt, protesting against the quality of food 
furnished to the soldiers and intimating that for sanitary 
reasons and lack of commissariat it might be necessary 
to abandon positions which the valor of the army had won. 

The World had not shone in military criticism, which 
was rather out of its field. For a time it joined in shout- 
ing '^On to Cadiz," and advocating an attack upon 
Spain, but after the fall of Santiago it recovered its poise 
and realized that the war had lasted long enough. Hence- 
forward it favored an early peace. In exposing the beef 
scandals it led the way and did much good work. 

The political campaign of 1898 began as the protocol 
of peace was signed. Boss Piatt, more concerned to retain 
his hold on the state government than he had been to keep 
Croker out of power in Nev/ York City, looked for a ^^war 
hero'' who could not be held responsible for the blunders 
of the administration. There was one such man in New 
York, practically only one. Colonel Roosevelt of the 
Rough Riders, fresh from the front, an intense, ambitious 
man, familiar with political conditions in Albany and 
not unduly sensitive about being bossed. For the Roose- 
velt who has since thundered so fiercely against bosses 
gave out in September, 1898, an interview stating that 
if elected Governor he would ^^on all matters of impor- 
tance consult Senator Piatt as leader of the party." 

Had The World's advice been heeded in 1898 the 
country might have been spared the picturesque, costly 



A WAR FOR AN IDEAL 165 

career of this child of destiny. It was an opportunity 
for a strong Democratic candidate. The World had such 
a candidate, a man whom for years it had urged upon 
attention for Mayor or for Governor. On September 16th 
it said : 

Judge Gaynor certainly possesses many qualities desirable 
in a candidate. There can be no doubt in any mind as to what 
the man who sent McKane to prison would do to the Canal 
Ring if he were elected Governor. No Force bill would receive 
his approval. No corporations with interests inimical to the 
public interest could either buy or dictate legislation if Gaynor 
were Governor. He is as brave as Roosevelt, and is superior 
as a stump-speaker. No boss could control him. He has 
shown himself to be a reformer who reforms evils. 

Had Gaynor been a candidate against Colonel Roose- 
velt the man on horseback would have been left to his 
pen and his study. Judge Gaynor was not then, nor on 
the other occasions mentioned, desirous of the nomina- 
tion. He would not have been accepted in any case by 
Boss Croker, whose influence secured the selection of 
Mayor Van Wyck^s brother, Judge Augustus Van Wyck, 
of Brooklyn. It was a nomination to justify the often- 
repeated question, ^^Must a boss be an ass?" Voters 
feared that Judge Van Wyck might be as servile to 
bossism in Albany as his brother in New York. To make 
matters worse, Croker denied a renomination to Supreme 
Court Justice Daly, and thus heightened the revolt. 

The World was not unfriendly to Colonel Roosevelt, 
with his newly won laurels as a popular soldier, but it 
saw in him an accepted agent of Boss Piatt; and upon 
the Piatt machine rather than upon Roosevelt personally 
it trained its batteries. There was plenty of ammunition: 
the new series of canal scandals, which showed the ma- 
chine in an unfavorable light; the Force bill, passed to 
hamper free elections in New York; imperialism and 



166 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Republican extravagance. It was a losing battle. But 
with all the advantages of a war candidate, with an an- 
tagonist so weak as Van Wyck, and with the Daly issue 
to help in the metropolis, Colonel Roosevelt won only by 
eighteen thousand plurality. Almost any popular candi- 
date would have beaten him. Judge Gaynor could have 
won by a tremendous margin. So fortune serves her 
favorites. Elsewhere in the country there were decided 
Democratic gains in spite of a successful war. The 
temporary relegation of the silver issue to the rear had 
made them possible. 

Immediately after the election of Roosevelt as Governor 
of New York pressure was renewed upon the 1899 Legis- 
lature for a law taxing franchises, a project initiated by 
The World, The bill was drawn by Lawson Purdy and 
Senator John Ford, now a Supreme Court justice, from a 
draft sent by The World. Governor Roosevelt suggested a 
commission to investigate taxation, but by mass-meetings 
and other means of voicing public sentiment it was made 
plain that delay would score against the party responsible. 
Boss Piatt did not favor the act. Boss Croker, who testi- 
fied before the Mazet Committee that he was ^'working for 
his own pocket all the time,'' looked with disfavor upon tax- 
ing the corporations that had bought franchises. But pub- 
licity was too powerful for the old-time partnership, and on 
April 29th The World was able to announce its triumph: 

The passage by the Assembly of the Ford bill taxing fran- 
chises, by the strong vote of 104 to 38, completes a notable 
victory for justice through publicity. 

On the 11th of January last The World took up the question 
of unequal assessments and unjust taxation in this city. It 
showed that over $6,000,000,000 of personal property assessed 
for taxation escaped through ^'swearing off." It revealed the 
enormous value of the franchises of street-using corporations 
and the ridiculously small amount paid by these corporations 
for their privileges. . . . 



A WAR FOR AN IDEAL 167 

From that day to this not an issue of The World has appeared 
without an array of facts, arguments and appeals bearing on 
this question. More than 350 columns of this matter have 
been printed in The World during its fight for just taxation. 

In addition to this The World procured and sent to the 
Legislature a petition for the Ford bill, containing the names 
of 20,000 property-owners and rent-payers. . . . And finally, 
when the measure was to all appearances dead in the hostile 
hands of the Assembly Rules Committee, The World organized 
and sent, at its own expense by special train to Albany, a 
committee of one hundred citizens to make a last demand 
upon the Assembly for action on the bill. The revived hope of 
its friends dated from that demonstration. 

The relief to overburdened taxpayers from this measure of 
justice will be perceptible and welcome. It will reduce by 
$15,000,000 the burden upon the present taxpayers of this 
city. It will increase the bond-issuing capacity of the city 
$100,000,000. But greater than this is the demonstration that 
when the people will do so they still rule. 

Governor Roosevelt had found in the bill what he 
described as faults and called the Legislature in special 
session to remedy them. In the opinion of Senator Ford 
the Roosevelt changes weakened the law, but it has con- 
tinued to serve a useful purpose in the economy of the 
state, after having been held valid by the United States 
Supreme Court. 

In the same month The World defeated a long-pending 
plot of water-right and water-option owners to exploit 
the city through a contract to provide water from the 
Ramapo River for a sum which, it was supposed, would 
mount to two hundred million dollars. A water system 
half public-owned and half privately controlled was pre- 
posterous. Yet in the low moral state of the city govern- 
ment the project would probably have succeeded had not 
The World enjoined the Board of Public Improvements, 
called mass-meetings, and roused public sentiment. A 
good part of the battle was in a telling phrase; as ^'The 



168 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Great Chartered Eamapo Robbery" the scheme became 
notorious; and with the aid of Comptroller Bird S. Coler 
it was killed. 

Similar services were rendered to rapid transit. A 
tablet in City Hall Park shows where the first subway was 
begun by Mayor Van Wyck's throwing out a spadeful 
of earth; it does not tell how Van Wyck's administration 
followed the Tammany traditions of hostility to the 
measure, even to the point of securing an opinion from 
Corporation Counsel Whalen, a Croker appointee, that 
the city^s debt limit was exhausted and it could not issue 
rapid-transit bonds. The World with its rallying cry of 
^'Fifteen Minutes to Harlem" had powerfully aided in 
arousing public sentiment in favor of quicker transit 
until it would not be denied. The beginning of the first 
public-built and public-owned subway in New York was 
an event of great importance. The magnitude of the 
work would alone have made its inception memorable. 
The original subway cost $35,000,000 to construct; with 
improvements and extensions, including that to Brooklyn 
under the East River, it had cost $55,000,000 before 
arrangements were made to complete and supplement 
it. 

The cause of international peace, which The World 
had so powerfully aided, again interested it in 1899. 
The summoning of the first Hague Conference by ^Hhe 
ruler of the most backward of the peoples commonly 
called civilized," the Czar of Russia, was scoffed at by the 
statesmen of Europe. They saw in it the idealism of a 
dreamy monarch ; or with Kipling, warning Britain against 
the truce of the ^^bear that walks like a man," they saw 
danger to themselves. That the American representa- 
tives went to the conference in a more hopeful spirit was 
in part due to the long support of The World. 

Britain was just then in greater need of warning against 
the aggression of the bear than against the fate of Adam- 



A WAR FOR AN IDEAL 169 

Zad. She was in the full course of the provocative steps 
which, beginning with the Jameson raid, were to bring 
on the Boer War in the interest of a few cosmopolitan 
mine-owners and of Joseph Chamberlain's schemes of 
colonial empire. The World threw open its columns to 
President '^Oom Paul" Kruger of the Transvaal. His 
statement was simamarized editorially: 

President Kruger says that the crisis is due to two main 
causes : 

First — ''A certain section of British residents, to whom the 
existence of the Republic, embracing the most flourishing parts 
of South Africa, is a standing eyesore, and who are suffering 
from the prevailing jingo mania." 

Second — ^'The mining capitalists, who, not content with 
having the best mining laws in the world, wish also to have 
complete control of legislation and administration. '^ 

The object, he says, is as clear as are the causes: 

"The destruction of the Republic and the complete control 
of the richest mines in the world." 

There is a dignified and profoundly touching pathos in 
"Oom Paul's" conclusion: 

** Though we have no such powerful friend as you proved to 
be to Venezuela and other republics, we have strong faith that 
the cause of freedom and republicanism will triumph in the end." 

A month later President Kruger, the President of the 
Orange Free State, and the Premier of Cape Colony joined 
in protests through The World against the impending war. 
Its columns were used to secure signatures to petitions 
which begged President McKinley to offer the friendly 
services of the United States in reconciUng Great Britain 
and the two republics. To these petitions the President 
replied through a cabinet minister as simamarized by The 
World: 

First — The United States, having been the recipient of moral 
support from England during the war -mth Spain, will do noth- 
ing distasteful to England. 

1a 



170 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Second — While the sympathies of the President and his 
Cabinet are, to a certain extent, with the Boers, yet their love 
for England is stronger and outweighs their friendliness for the 
Krugerites. 

Third — The President will not intervene, believing, as he 
does, that intervention might enable some foreign power to 
take a hand in the Philippine war. 

'''Love of England,"' replied The World to President 
McKinley, "you are right; we are under moral obliga- 
tions to England and her moral support last year. Deepen 
that obligation ! Show for England that higher friendship, 
that higher love, which is not inconsistent with your duty 
as a civilized man and as the representative of the great 
republic — love of peace, love of justice, love of the 
American principle of arbitration!'' 

Against the first suggestion that the United States 
should retain the Philippines The World was in revolt. 
Upon the trial balloons sent up by the Administration to 
test public opinion upon "benevolent assimilation" it 
trained its artillery. It characterized the proposed treaty 
as coming from "the inner temple of Mammon," as an 
attempt to extend markets with monopoly by the war 
power, instead of inviting trade by tariff concessions; 
and to the suggestion that we should "pay Spain forty 
million dollars indemnity [twenty million dollars in the 
treaty as signed] for the destruction of her fleet" by 
Dewey it answered that "destiny" was a hifalutin name 
for bunco. The spirit of many editorial protests against 
holding subject races without constitutional guarantees 
is shown in the following article of November 3, 1898: 

The Great Republic has won a position as a world-power, 
a world-influence, by means of a war, not for ''criminal aggres- 
sion," but for humanity and liberty alone. 

How shall she begin to use the power? . . . 

There is a demand that the first step shall be the establish- 



A WAR FOR AN IDEAL 171 

ment of a military despotism over remote and forever alien 
Malay millions. 

But is there not a worthier, a more fitting way of first making 
ourselves felt in the world's politics? 

'^Vampire empire" will drain the blood of our young men 
sent out as garrisons. It will degrade us to the level of war- 
makers for ''criminal aggression." It will rob us of our un- 
sullied character as the friends of liberty, the advocates of 
government only with the consent of the governed. 

Would it not be nobler, wiser, to keep to the course of human- 
ity and civilized progress? Would it not be better to continue 
to define our international responsibilities as George Wash- 
ington defined them when he wrote, ''give to mankind the 
magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided 
by an exalted justice and benevolence"? 

No imperialism. No indemnity to Spain. No permanent 
war taxes. No annex of despotism. No shoulder-strap 
satrapies. No infusion of Malay hordes into the Republic. 
No plutocracy at home. No autocracy abroad. 

Yet the country was not displeased with the tinsel 
of its new toy. In the 1899 elections imperialism was not 
directly involved, as no members of Congress were elected 
except' to fill vacancies; but the verdict of the states, 
though indirect, was emphatic. Mr. Bryan represented 
anti - imperialism, but he also continued to represent 
free silver, which, though dead as an issue, could be 
galvanized by skilful political foes into horrendous signs 
of renewed vitality. After the November elections The 
World was constrained to say: 

The elections mean a victory for imperialism in a majority 
of the States voting. There is neither honesty nor profit in 
denying this. They mean also a triumph for McKinley — but 
a triumph that was made easy by Mr. Bryan and his friends 
in thrusting again to the front at the beginning of the campaign 
the futile and fatal fallacy of free silver and the thrice-con- 
demned Chicago platform. 

Yet the blunder was to be repeated. 



XIII 

IMPERIALISM 

1900-1901 

Mr. Bryants Tactical Error — He Assists the Spanish Treaty and Acquisi- 
tion of the Philippines — Republican Platform Determined by the Results 
of the War — Reciprocity Yields to the Theory of Markets Won and Held 
by Military Power — Theodore Roosevelt for Vice-President — The Free- 
Silver Issue Insisted Upon by Mr. Bryan — Devery and the New York 
Police Department — Governor Odell Rescues the City by Favoring FvMon — 
The Shepard-Low Campaign. 

Mr. Bryan saw that imperialism was an inescapable 
issue. But at the crisis which decided American policy 
he was smitten with vacillation of purpose or errancy of 
judgment which robbed his influence of its due effect. 

That he felt the peril of the shifting national course he 
showed in December, 1898. ^^ Heretofore/' said he, 
^ Agreed has perverted the government and used its instru- 
mental interference for private gain; but now the very 
foundation principles of our government are assaulted.'' 
And, adapting Lincoln's phrase, ^Hhis nation cannot 
endure half republic and half colony, half free and half 
vassal." 

How, then, did he justify his action only two months 
later? The Treaty of Paris, ceding the Philippines, was 
submitted to the Senate early in 1899 and debated four 
weeks. Enlightened public sentiment was unfavorable. 
The World and other journals of influence protested. The 
majority of the American Peace Commissioners in Paris 
had opposed the Philippine cession until instructed by 



IMPERIALISM 173 

President McKinley to insist upon it. One reason for 
his course was gratitude to Great Britain and a wish 
to oblige her by keeping the islands out of unfriendly 
hands. But jingoism was already keen among the war 
enthusiasts in the two military services and in business 
interests which thrive on war contracts. 

Whatever the reasons for the cession, the treaty con- 
taining it nearly failed of ratification, receiving in the 
Senate only one vote to spare. The veteran Republican 
Senators, Hoar of Massachusetts and Hale of Maine, 
both voted against the innovation. But for Mr. Bryan's 
advice the seventeen Democrats and Populists who sup- 
ported the treaty could not have been mustered. ^^I 
believe," said he, when taxed with inconsistency, "that 
we are now in a better position to wage a successful war 
against imperialism than we would have been had the 
treaty been rejected.'^ "You thought,'' commented The 
World, "a great wrong should be done that you might 
fight the great wrong after it was accomplished." 

The World had no idea of such an error of postponement. 
It fought the Treaty of Paris in the making and in the 
ratification and did not cease the fight even when it was 
ratified. Unanswerable were its arguments — unless the 
Declaration of Independence was a mistake. The native 
inhabitants "possessed the right to govern themselves or 
to give their consent to being governed, which is included 
in the natural and unalienable right of all men to life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Telling use was 
made of the treaty made by Mr. McKinley with the 
Sultan of Sulu — "recognition of the Sultan's complete 
independence and even sovereignty under the protection 
of the United States"; the "subsidies to himself, his 
harem keepers, etc., recognition of and protection to 
slavery and bigamy." 

But whatever Mr. Bryan's error in 1899 in causing the 
Treaty of Paris to be ratified with Democratic aid, he did 



174 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

sincerely believe that ruling the Philippines outside of the 
Constitution was wrong; he held to that belief, and re- 
mained a power on the side of justice to our island wards 
and to our own traditions. ^^ We should not only give the 
Filipino independence," he said, later, but ^'we should 
protect him from his enemies. We should establish a 
government and then tell him. that it is his, and then we 
should tell the world ^ Hands off.'" In a speech in 
Keokuk in October, 1899, Mr. Bryan swept away in a 
sentence the whole defense of McKinley's war of subjuga- 
tion. "Must we keep these islands because Dewey sank 
a Spanish fleet?" he asked. "Schley sank one, and we 
promise to free Cuba." 

Because of such utterances and because silver was no 
longer a danger The World viewed Mr. Bryan's nomina- 
tion in 1900 with less misgiving than in 1896. It was 
apparent long before the convention met that there 
would be little chance of naming another man. The 
World had hoped to find such a man in Admiral Dewey. 
Perhaps a war hero might wrest the country from the 
Republicans. Unwilling in the fall of 1899 to announce 
himself a candidate, the admiral permitted the use of his 
name on April 3, 1900. "What citizen would refuse," he 
said, "the highest honor in the gift of the nation?" 
Mournfully The World admitted that "Admiral Dewey is 
perhaps for the first time in his life too late. Last 
October opportunity sought him in vain. Now he seeks 
it in vain." 

The Republican platform was written in advance by the 
name of the President and the result of the war. Reci- 
procity was dead. A favoring tariff had been refused to 
Porto Rico by Congress, though that island was an in- 
tegral part of the nation "Mondays, Wednesdays, and 
Fridays." Washington was dreaming of trade in Asia. 
Of these sinister facts in the Republican outlook The 
World said: 



IMPERIALISM 175 

Reciprocity was a valuable idea, because it proposed more 
and more widely to open to us, to our superior skill in produc- 
tion, the markets of the civilized world. . . . 

The Republican policy of to-day is a complete reversal of 
the sagacious plans of the RepubHcan leader and party of a 
dozen years ago. 

The McKinleys and Hannas invite our producers to turn 
their whole attention to the meager markets of barbaric and 
semi-barbaric peoples, to the '' gorgeous East" — gorgeous in 
poetry and romance, but squalid and poor in reality. 

The World opposed the nomination of a third ticket by 
the Gold Democrats. '^Fom- years ago," it said, *'free 
silver was the dominant issue in the campaign. This 
year, though it may be talked about in certain sections, 
it will not be an issue at all because the money question 
is settled for at least four years to come by an unchangeable 
Republican majority in the Senate." It begged all 
Democrats to concentrate their attention upon the more 
pressing danger: 

A country with subject possessions secured by conquest 
and governed by force is not a republic. And where plutocracy 
rules, democracy becomes merely a name without force or 
effect. 

It is for these reasons that a third ticket this year is not only 
uncalled for, but would be even more farcical than it was in 
1896. Mr. Bryan, who, as The World said two months ago, 
will be renominated by acclamation, represents the American 
and, therefore, the democratic side of these living, burning, 
dominating issues. He is for this reason entitled to and will 
receive the support of The World and of all who believe with 
us that ''the only issue worth considering in this campaign is 
the preservation of the Republic, the maintenance of the 
Constitution and a return to the principles of the Declaration 
of Independence." 

The death of Vice-President Hobart made it necessary 
for the Republican national convention to select a new 



176 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

candidate for his office — the only real business of the 
gathering. Naturally, the energetic Governor of New 
York was discussed. Mr. Roosevelt had refused to be 
considered, but "the irrevocable' was revoked. * Vow- 
ing he would ne'er consent,' he consented." Piatt had 
"desired and schemed for this result in order to get 
Roosevelt out of the Governor's chair." Yet The World 
saw in the disposition of the delegates to select Mr. 
Roosevelt, "in spite of the sinister support of the bosses, 
the undisguised hostility of the corporations in this State 
and the opposition of Hanna, a fine tribute to his charac- 
ter, his high purpose and real achievements in public life." 

The Democratic convention, meeting in Kansas City 
July 4th, adopted one plank to which The World could 
take no exception: "The burning issue of imperialism, 
growing out of the Spanish war, involves the very exis- 
tence of the Republic and the destruction of our free in- 
stitutions. We regard it as the paramount issue of the 
campaign.^' 

But a party cannot always determine upon what issue 
it will fight its battles. Issues are thrust upon it by cir- 
cumstances, by dumb chance, by an accusing past. 
Mr. Bryan, with his genius for defeat, did not trust to 
anything less certain than deliberate intent to provide 
himself with a losing cause. To the Gold Democrats who 
besought him to make it possible for them to rejoin the 
party his answer was a telegram, printed the day the 
convention met: 

If by any chance the Committee on Resolutions decides to report 
a platform in which there is not a silver plank, there must be a minority 
report and a fight on the floor of the convention. I will come to 
Kansas City on the fastest train available, make a fight for free silver 
on the floor of the convention, and then decline to take the nomination 
if the convention omits the ratio. This is final. 

This unwelcome action and the adoption of a free-silver 
plank did not deter The World from Bryan's support, 



IMPERIALISM 177 

though it felt that support to be hopeless. During the 
campaign Mr. Bryan devoted much attention to the new 
issue of the far-away islands — so much that The World 
described him as ^^ The New Bryan." It said on September 
26th: 

It is not necessary to agree with Mr. Bryan — and we certainly 
do not agree with him on his financial theories — ^in order to 
do him the simple justice of admitting that he is a far different 
man from what he was four years ago; more dignified, more 
temperate, more respectful in every way of the conservative 
opinion of the country. . . . 

Venerable and life-long Republican statesmen, like George 
S. Boutwell, over eighty years old, and Carl Schurz, seventy- 
two, have nothing in the world to gain by coming out for Mr. 
Bryan now, if they saw in him the same representative of dan- 
gerous political experiments as four years ago. 

The result of the election was never in much doubt. 
Hope upon the one side, apprehension on the other, rose 
to no such heights as in 1896. Defeat was more crushing. 
Bryan's popular vote was 150,000 smaller; McKinley's 
100,000 greater. The electoral college showed a plurality 
of 137. It was a heavy blow to anti-imperialism. For 
the time being, the country was committed to the con- 
tinuance of that rule over the Philippines and their 
eight million people which an old-fashioned Republican, 
Senator Hoar, described as ^'pure, simple, undiluted, 
unchecked despotism." 

Because of his services to the city in the Ramapo and 
other matters The World favored the nomination of 
Comptroller Color for Governor in 1900, but the reasons 
which made him at that time a popular candidate made 
him also unpalatable to Tammany, and John B. Stanch- 
field, Mr. HilFs candidate, was placed in the field. It 
would have made little difference that year whom the 
party nominated. Seeing his opportunity to ride into 



178 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

office upon the backs of the sound-money men, Senator 
Piatt named for Governor his deputy boss, Representative 
Benjamin B. Odell, Jr., a politician of more than ordinary 
shrewdness. Perhaps Odell nominated himself; he was 
already grasping the power from Piatt's enfeebled hands. 

Little as it liked Stanchfield, The World liked less OdelFs 
nomination, which ^^ raised the question clean-cut whether 
one man shall hold both the executive and the law-making 
power." As Piatt's proxy, he had been the Legislature 
the previous winter; his election would mean "a practical 
subversion of popular government and the substitution 
of one-man rule pure and simple." 

Weak candidate as he would have been under happier 
circumstances, Odell won, with McKinley's help, by 
one hundred and eleven thousand. He proved to be the 
ablest Governor New York had had for years. A fair 
vision of the Presidency shone before him, and he was 
keen to note how Cleveland had attained that office by 
disregard of bosses and service of the people. 

If The World's efforts for national reform were made of 
no avail by the silver obsession; if in the state its desire 
for good government was unexpectedly aided by a man 
whom it had reasons for opposing, it triumphed greatly 
in the city of New York against the alliance between vice 
and politics which throve in the shelter of Tammany. 

The Van Wyck administration had proved all that had 
been feared. The Police Department, under four com- 
missioners — one Tammany man, one McLaughlin Demo- 
crat from Brooklyn, and two nominal Republicans, who 
were really assistant Tammanyites — was practically con- 
trolled by William S. Devery as chief. The Republican 
Legislature changed the charter, putting the chief and the 
Police Board out of office and substituting a single com- 
missioner. Croker countered by making Devery deputy 
commissioner; for commissioner he selected Michael C. 
Murphy, a wizened atomy of a man performing the 



IMPERIALISM 179 

daily miracle of living with a closed oesophagus, which 
required feeding through a tube, a process that could 
not long keep him alive. Even with the best of inten- 
tions Mxirphy could be no more than a figurehead. 

The tale of Van Wyck's unfitness did not stop with his 
surrender of the Police Department to Croker; he was 
willing also to receive personal profit from a trust that 
proposed to exploit the people by municipal favor. This 
was the famous Ice Trust; with Devery, it gave Van 
Wyck the title of ''the Ice-Trust- Vice-Trust Mayor." 

The Ice Trust was the creation of Charles W. Morse, 
of Bath, Maine, who has since served a term in a federal 
prison for banking offenses. Morse's idea was simplicity 
itself. Combining various ice companies, he planned to 
shut out competition by control of private and public 
docks at which independent dealers could land ice. In 
this he counted upon the co-operation of the Dock Board, 
in which Charles F. Murphy, afterward the Tammany 
boss, was the ruling spirit. On May 1, 1890, the trust 
notified domestic customers that ice would cost sixty 
cents a hundred pounds, and that no five-cent pieces 
would be sold. On May 23d The World announced that 
it had found in the armory of the law a weapon for the 
protection of the people against extortion, in section 
1534 of the Greater New York charter, providing for 
the summary public examination of any city official or 
other person: 

This provision of law was originally enacted in 1874 to remedy 
the difficulty that had then lately arisen in compelling the 
testimony of official and other persons concerned in the crimes 
of the Tweed Ring. Wisely incorporated in the consolidated 
city's charter, it is now invoked by The World to compel the 
disclosure, by pubhc examination, of whatever '^knowledge or 
information'' the officials of the city and their unofficial partners 
have in their possession as to the Ice Trust and the dealings of 
the Dock Board therewith. 



180 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Justice Gaynor, on application made by The World under 
this section, has issued an order to Mayor Van Wyck, Mr. 
John F. Carroll, and the three members of the Dock Board — 
all of whom have so far refused to say one word as to their 
official or personal relations with the Ice Trust — and also 
to the President and Vice-President of the American Ice Com- 
pany, to appear before him on Saturday next and submit to 
examination on oath on that intensely interesting subject. 

Mayor Van Wyck admitted that through a ground- 
floor arrangement he had obtained 3,050 shares of pre- 
ferred stock and 2,750 shares of common stock of the 
Ice Trust, although the city charter forbade such invest- 
ment. Others who held stock were his brother, Augustus 
Van Wyck, defeated candidate for Governor in 1898; 
John F. Carroll; Richard Croker and members of his 
family; Dock Commissioners Murphy and J. Sergeant 
Cram; Hugh McLaughlin, of Brooklyn; Frank Black, 
Republican ex-Governor; Corporation Counsel Whalen; 
^^ Honest John'^ Daly, gambler; James A. Mahoney, the 
'^King of the Poolrooms,'^ and certain judges, some of 
whom had been investors in companies absorbed by the 
trust. 

The World sent Governor Roosevelt a citizens' petition 
for the removal of Mayor Van Wyck. Though nothing 
directly came of this action, it aided in causing the 
trust to cut twenty cents a ton from the price of ice, 
and the issue thus raised was potent the following year 
in redeeming the city. 

Nothing is farther from truth than the assumption that 
a political boss like Richard Croker must be a shrewd 
politician to gain and wield his power. 

Croker had an iron will, great stubbornness, and poor 
judgment. His political acumen reached only so far 
as that, given a strong situation, a party plurality, or a 
magnetic candidate, he could load upon that element of 
strength a burden of jobbery or of unfit nominations, 



IMPERIALISM ISl 

and possibly win. But, as he was incapable of estimating 
the mental processes of the average citizen, he was con- 
stantly overloading his tickets. He did that in 1898 
when he nominated a second Van Wyck for Governor 
and denied a nomination to Judge Daly, and lost the 
state. He did it in 1901, and lost the city and the 
county. It was practically his last exploit. 

There was a new power in the field, of which The 
World said in March, 1901— while McKinley was still 
living: 

Gov. Odell has not merely "broken with the boss." His 
move is far bolder, far more significant. In asserting his inde- 
pendence he has struck for the leadership of his party. 

Like Roosevelt, Odell is of lofty ambition. Like Roosevelt 
two years ago, he wants a second term as Governor, and hopes 
for the Presidency afterward. But his problem is the reverse 
of that which Roosevelt had to solve. Roosevelt had a repu- 
tation as an independent, and to win he had to keep it and 
at the same time gain the favor of the machine. He failed 
measurably in both directions. Odell has a reputation as a 
machine and corporation man, and to win he must keep the 
favor of the machine, or himself secure control of it, and at 
the same time win the favor of the people by such measures 
as the corporation-tax laws and his policy of economy. 

The rising star of Odell gave promise that the Repub- 
lican machine would not this year be unfavorable to fusion 
against Tammany, while the Citizens' Union also, chas- 
tened by defeat and aghast at the consequences of 
disunion, was in a more reasonable frame of mind than 
in 1897. The nomination of Seth Low could almost be 
taken for granted. For safety's sake The World would 
have preferred a strong Democrat on the fusion side, 
but it was well pleased with Low. It turned also to 
Croker, urging him to name a man of high type, so that 
the city would be safe, no matter who was chosen. Croker, 
quite capable of adding the Low and Tracy vote of 1897 



182 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

and subtracting Tammany's, realized that he must not 
try another Van Wyck. He nominated Edward M. 
Shepard, of whom The World said: 

In accepting Edward M. Shepard as the Democratic nominee 
for Mayor, Mr. Croker is entitled to credit for acting on the 
suggestion made by The World, which nearly a month ago 
first named Mr. Shepard as one of the strongest candidates 
who could be nominated. No matter what his motive may be 
for yielding to The World's advice, even if it be no higher than 
the making a virtue of necessity, the fact that Mr. Croker 
has so yielded and has rendered the city a signal service by 
so doing deserves full and ungrudging acknowledgment. 

Whatever the outcome of the election may be in other 
respects, the city is assured in advance that the Mayor's chair 
will be filled by a man, and not a puppet. 

Shepard was an ideal candidate. He had been a 
municipal reformer all his life, had rendered distinguished 
public service. He was able. His speeches were fine 
and strong. Upon both sides, so far as the Mayoralty 
was concerned, the campaign was kept upon a high plane. 
The World asked only that Shepard pledge himself to the 
purification of the Police Department. Seth Low had 
said that if he were elected, '^as soon as practicable after 
the first of January the official heads of Mr. Murphy and 
Mr. Devery will roll upon the ground." Would Mr. 
Shepard, The World asked, '^define his position and 
purpose in equally plain terms?" There was something 
quixotic in the tenor of Mr. Shepard's reply to the crucial 
question of his campaign. It is thus summarized in 
The World editorial of October 14th: 

He quoted Mr. Low's pledge . . . and admitted that "the 
temptation upon me to give it is strong," as ''there is no doubt 
pre-election advantage in this pledge." But he refused to 
give it: 

1. Upon the constitutional ground that the oath of office 



IMPERIALISM 183 

requires the successful candidate to swear that he has "not 
made any promise to influence the giving or withholding of 
any vote." This provision, Mr. Shepard contends, was estab- 
lished in order that when an elected public servant of the people 
enters upon his duties "he shall do so subject to no personal 
pledge, promise or mortgage which wdll prevent his acting in 
office with an absolute freedom upon the facts as he shall find 
them to be, and upon his conscience." 

2. He refused upon the ethical ground that "No man, what- 
ever my present impression or opinion of him, and however 
strong my impression may be now, shall, by any promise I 
now give, be deprived of the right to submit to me as a sworn 
Mayor in office, ready with an unclosed mind to hear, his 
defense if he has one." 

"For all the votes in Christendom," declared Mr. Shepard, 
"I will not preclude myself, if I become Mayor, from listening 
to any defense of any subordinate officer with a fair and intelli- 
gent mind and a resolute will." 

Incongruous the spectacle of such a scrupulous candi- 
date running upon a Croker platform and ticket! The 
incongruity was to receive visible illustration when Mr. 
Shepard, a man of slender physique, appeared upon the 
platform at Tammany Hall surrounded by men of splendid 
physique who had won their way to power in part by 
their muscular strength. Many a voter who saw the 
contrast wondered if Shepard could hold his own against 
such men if elected. The World pointed out inescapable 
comparisons: 

Mr. Shepard has not only put himself upon the Tammany 
ticket and upon the Tammany platform praising and eulogizing 
the Van Wyck administration, but he has spoken in Tammany 
Hall itself. 

This is "the same Mr. Shepard" who, four years ago, said 
that "the most burning and disgraceful blot upon the municipal 
history of this country is the career of Tammany Hall." . . . 

We congratulate Mr. Croker upon his master stroke. 



184 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Probably Mr. Shepard could not have been elected at 
this time; against Low, and with so poor a ticket in sup- 
port, he should not have been. Croker, who consoled 
himself for the need of a fine candidate for Mayor by 
nominating for minor offices men after his own heart, set 
the capstone to his folly by naming Mayor Van Wyck 
to be a Justice of the Supreme Court. Van Wyck had 
upon the platform the unique experience, for a Tammany 
candidate, of being hissed by audiences in Tammany 
strongholds, and was branded by the Bar Association as 
*^ conspicuously unfit.'' The World, while strongly sup- 
porting Low, urged Democrats who would not leave 
their party to vote for Shepard, in whose hands the 
Mayoralty would be safe, but at any rate to oppose all 
the creatures of Croker upon the ticket. Many thou- 
sands must have done this. Mr. Low's plurality was 
31,000. Edward M. Grout, who ran upon the Fusion 
ticket for Comptroller against a weaker candidate than 
Shepard, had 46,000. Van Wyck received but 129,000 
votes for Justice in New York County. This was 14,000 
less than he had in the same county four years earlier for 
Mayor, even in a three-cornered fight. Where Tammany 
candidates were accustomed to get 25,000 to 30,000 plu- 
rality he ran 43,000 below the highest Fusion candidate. 

By this magnificent victory The World was moved to 
some characteristic reflections: 

Mr. Croker, who used to sneer at newspaper influence, now 
says: "I give full credit for the result of the election to the 
newspapers." Mr. Piatt, whose modest habit it has been to 
attribute Republican triumphs to Divine Providence, on the 
day after the late election gave the credit of Tammany's over- 
throw to the newspapers. . . . 

If newspaper power has developed so greatly and so largely 
in right directions and for the public welfare in a hundred 
years, what illimitable opportunities for growth and for good 
in the future open before it at the beginning of the twentieth 



IMPERIALISM 185 

century! More and more the saying of Constant becomes 
true: "The press is the mistress of intelligence, and intelligence 
is the mistress of the world." 

There has never been occasion to regret the action of 
The World or the decision of the people in that campaign. 
The Low administration was not free from grave faults. 
But it resolutely set up service as its ideal. Unfortu- 
nately, an opportunity was soon to be given for [^New 
York to swing back into Tammany rule. 

In 1897, when Strong was Mayor and New York 
temporarily in revolt against Tammany, the Legislature 
had fixed the Mayor's term in the city charter at four 
years. Croker reaped the benefit under Van Wyck. 
In a panic at the result the Legislature shortened the 
term to two years. Mayor Low was the first to be 
elected for the shorter term, and had barely time to get 
well under way with an administration of fine beginnings 
when he was ousted. Later the term was again made 
four years, and it so remains. 

13 



XIV 

IN PRAISE OF ROOSEVELT 

1902-1904 

The Coal Strike and President Roosevelt's Energetic Action — HilVs Socialistic 
Platform in New York — Defeat by a Narrow Margin — The Rise of a 
New Power in Tammany Hall — Murphy^ s Skilful Campaign in 1903 — 
George B. McClellan^s Long Service as Mayor — Hugh McLaughlin's Last 
Fight — The Northern Securities Merger Smashed by the Supreme Court — 
Growing Power of the President — Some Early Misgivings. 

A GREAT mistake would be his who should fancy that 
because The World has criticized many of Theodore 
Roosevelt's policies and activities it has been his never- 
satisfied detractor. No paper has been more emphatic 
in praising him. In its comments upon no other public 
man has it more often verified its denial that it was a 
party paper, or more often proved its ^'independence of 
bosses, machines, candidates and platforms." 

The year 1902, when Mr. Roosevelt was fresh in the 
President's chair, furnished many opportunities for 
praise. The World was pleased with his appointment of 
Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes to the Supreme Court. 
In calling for more such appointments it showed the 
President how he could counter upon Mr. Bryan. If a 
justice like Mr. Shiras, who by shifting his vote on the 
income tax created an issue for Mr. Bryan, were to retire 
and if President Roosevelt were to appoint in his place 
another man of the type of Justice Holmes he would "add 
still more to the prestige of the Supreme Court among 
those very followers of Mr. Bryan who most distrusted it." 



IN PRAISE OF ROOSEVELT 187 

The victory of the people in the decision of Judge 
Thayer against the Northern Securities merger was 
hailed with satisfaction. Judge Thayer's decision is, 
The World said, ^'of the highest importance as a long step 
in the reaction against the hitherto triumphant march of 
monopoly and the passion for ^combining' anything and 
everything.'^ 

More emphatic was the commendation of Mr. Roosevelt 
for effecting a settlement of the coal strike which in the 
autumn of 1902 endangered the prosperity and even 
the lives of the people — for if by that fortune which waits 
upon ^' fools, drunkards and the United States of America" 
the ensuing winter had not been mild the calamity must 
have been appalling. The World branded the attitude 
of the employers in refusing arbitration as ^'unfair to the 
miners, injurious to the country and in contemptuous 
defiance of public opinion." 

The object of the trust which Mr. Morgan had formed 
of the coal railroads was to break the miners' union. In 
this The World predicted failure. When Mr. Roosevelt 
compelled the operators to consent to an arbitration 
arrangement under which mining could be resumed 
The World gave him the heartiest praise. Work was not 
begun too soon. The need of coal was urgent. Schools 
and hospitals were with difficulty kept open. Shade trees 
were in some cases chopped down for firewood. Many 
dealers required physicians' prescriptions before yielding 
up the precious fuel at triple prices. In such conditions 
of public suffering, which continued long after mining 
was recommenced, the board of arbitrators, headed by 
Judge Gray, of Delaware, produced the sliding scale of 
wages which has since been the basis of agreements. 

An echo of the coal strike in the politics of New York 
State once more illustrated how foolish is the politician 
who relies upon claptrap. The Governorship was again 
in question. The World recognized that upon his record 



188 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Mr. Odell would be a strong candidate; that ^'as a cor- 
poration - taxer, a reformer and a sensible, practical, 
independent executive — the most successful since Tilden, 
far more efficient than Roosevelt — he would certainly be 
re-elected could he stand isolated upon the record of his 
administration/' But Odell, because of the forces he 
represented, could be beaten by a candidate of the 
highest type. The World mentioned, ^^not as candidates 
but as types,'' Edward M. Shepard, Judge Alton B. 
Parker, Justice Peckham, and Judge Gaynor. Why, with 
such wealth of material. Senator Hill selected Mr. Coler, 
already past his maximum strength, was a mystery soon 
forgotten in a greater blunder. 

This was Mr. Hill's plank in the Democratic state 
platform declaring in the name of the followers of Thomas 
Jefferson that '^We advocate the national ownership and 
operation of the anthracite-coal mines by the exercise of 
the right of eminent domain." 

At the time this platform was adopted a coal-ownership 
plank may have seemed sharp politics. But President 
Roosevelt, who knew the political trade even better than 
Senator Hill, by compelling arbitration had taken the 
plank from under Hill and left him dangling in air. With 
the miners all at work again before election there was 
little excuse for the travesty of Democratic doctrine. 

The World supported Coler while denouncing the Hill 
coal plank. Of this it said: 

Whatever the principle is, it is not original, for the Populist 
national platform of 1896 . . . declared that 'Hhe Government 
should own and operate the railroads and telegraph," the 
former of which rank with coal as a national necessity; and the 
Social Democratic party in 1900 pushed this doctrine still 
further toward its logical end in demanding "the pubhc owner- 
ship of all gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, coal and other mines, 
and all oil and gas wells." 

But, passing by the paternity of the theory, how would it 



IN PRAISE OF ROOSEVELT 189 

work? If the anthracite mines are to be owned by the Federal 
Government and operated by Federal agents, who would select 
and control these agents? Who selects the Federal ofl&ce-holders 
in Pennsylvania now? Is there one of them, from the highest 
to the lowest, who is not appointed by Matt Quay, the boss? 
Is there any doubt that he would, so long as the Republicans 
hold power, select and dominate every supervisor of Federal 
coal-mining and dragoon the votes of this great army of 
employees? 

The national government could no more secure and 
operate the coal-mines in time to avert a coal famine than 
it could ^'cut up the moon under the 'right of eminent 
domain ' and divide it among the people/' The plank was 
not a menace; like the silver issue in 1900, it was a handi- 
cap. The World begged its readers not to vote, through 
Odell, for a second term of Roosevelt or for '^ a Republican 
Congress pledged not to disturb the monopoly-protecting 
tariff/' It placed against Roosevelt's surrender to the 
tariff stand-patters McKinley's later view of the need 
of broadening our markets abroad. It quoted Charles 
M. Schwab's letter to H. C. Frick in 1899: 

As to the future, even on low prices, I am most sanguine. 
I know positively that England cannot produce pig-iron at 
the actual cost for less than $11.50 per ton, even allowing no 
profit on raw materials, and cannot put pig-iron into a rail 
with their most efficient works for less than $7.50 a ton. This 
would make rails at net cost to them at $19. We can sell at 
this price and ship abroad so as to net us $16 at works for 
foreign business, nearly as good as home business has been. 
What is true of rails is equally true of other steel products. 
As a result of this we are going to control the steel business of 
the world. 

You know we can make rails for less than $12 per ton, leaving 
a nice margin on foreign business. 

The election result was a surprise; not that Odell was 
elected, but that, with the help of his own good record as 



190 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Governor, the coal plank in the Democratic platform, and 
the prestige of Roosevelt, he should be elected by only 
eight thousand votes. This narrow result proved that 
'^if Judge Parker had been nominated and the socialistic 
coal-ownership plank omitted — as it would have been 
under his candidacy — the Democrats would have carried 
the State." Common sense in New York might not have 
been without effect in making still narrower the Republican 
majority of thirty in the new House of Representatives. 

The World had as little success in seeking to stem the 
current that next year swept Tammany back into control 
in New York. 

In retiring as boss of Tammany with an ample fortune, 
to become a sporting country gentleman in England, 
Richard Croker for a second time dropped the leadership 
with a string attached running to his own jfist. Once 
before he had left John C. Sheehan in charge of Tammany, 
and a few months later had returned and driven him from 
control. Now, at the beginning of 1902, he had left the 
Hall in the hands of Lewis Nixon, who, finding that he 
could not so conduct Tammany as to make sponsorship 
tolerable, resigned. Of him The World said: 

' By squarely recognizing this fact and retiring from a position 
which, as he says, he could not retain without losing his self- 
respect, he has done the people of Greater New York, as well 
as his party, a large service. He was not and, under existing 
conditions, could not be the real representative of the men 
who hold Tammany in their grip. . . . Mr. Nixon was mis- 
representative of the men behind and around him. He goes, 
and gains in public respect by going. They remain, and the 
popular judgment of them remains also. 

Croker, not wiUing or not in health to resume leadership, 
temporized after Nixon's retirement by setting up a 
triumvirate, composed of Daniel F. McMahon, Louis F. 
Haffen, and Charles F. Murphy — ''a two-spot, a joke and 



IN PRAISE OF ROOSEVELT 191 

a sport/' as they were described by Chief of Police Devery, 
retired. Of these three men the ^^ sport '' played Napoleon 
to his Directorate. The campaign of 1903 was his first; 
it was tactically his best. 

Mayor Low's administration was excellent, but hardly 
popular. For this many reasons were given, not always 
the right reasons or the only ones. 

Twenty years before, when he was twice elected as a 
Republican mayor of Democratic Brooklyn, Mr. Low^ had 
done two fine things. He had drawn about him assistants 
of the best kind, and he had taken the people into his 
confidence. Perhaps both feats were easier in the smaller 
city. In the Brooklyn of 1881-85 Mr. Low had upon 
occasion hired the Clermont Avenue Rink, had invited 
the people to hear him, had stood before them without 
preliminary music or chairman, told them what policies 
he proposed, and — even if it were higher taxation for a 
neglected community — had carried conviction. In the 
larger city such an improvised town-meeting was impos- 
sible. Low's appointments were generally good, but 
they were weakest upon the firing-line. 

Particularly was he unfortunate in the Police Depart- 
ment, where he placed Col. John N. Partridge, whom he 
had used in the same capacity in Brooklyn. Colonel 
Partridge was twenty years older. New York was many 
times a more difficult problem in 1902 than Brooklyn in 
1882. Police administration was well-meaning but in- 
efficient, and it was stained, without fault at its head, by 
a grave scandal when a witness against police graft, one 
McAuHffe, was beaten to death in a mysterious manner — 
the agents of his death being presumably policemen's 
clubs and the place possibly a police station. Toward the 
end of his term Mayor Low, under the prodding of The 
World, confided the Police Department to Gen. Francis 
Vinton Greene, a man of military experience, ability, and 
energy, who did much to improve its efiiciency. 



192 THE STO.IIY OF A PAGE 

The World saw, however, that: 

It has been the misfortune of most reform administrations 
to fail of re-election. Some of their appointments proved 
disappointments. Some elements in the fusion failed to get 
the share of offices they thought themselves entitled to. The 
"awful example'* of boss rule and machine misgovernment 
was not before the voters to inspire them to action. Indiffer- 
ence succeeded enthusiasm, and "the cat came back." 

William Travers Jerome, the Fusion district attorney, 
stated in August that Mayor Low could not be re-elected, 
not on account of anything he had ^^done or left undone'' 
as Mayor, but because of the '^unlovable personality of 
the man himself.'' ^^ Egotism, self-complacency and 
constitutional timidity," he said, ^^are not the elements 
to make a leader." Unjust as the statement was, it was 
believed by many people. The administration had made 
more beginnings than it was able in so short a time to 
follow up. In Brooklyn a borough administration, still 
a standard of excellence, had been furnished by J. Edward 
Swanstrom as Borough President and William C. Pedfield, 
later a Representative in Congress and Secretary of 
Commerce in President Wilson's Cabinet, as Commis- 
sioner of Public Works; but in that Low stronghold every 
shopkeeper whose encroaching sign had been removed 
from the sidewalk was in revolt against the law and its 
enforcers. There was, besides, the ^^ swing" of a Dem- 
ocratic city. 

Despite Mr. Jerome's warning Mayor Low was placed 
in nomination, and The World unhesitatingly commended 
the choice: 

Besides being logical and courageous, the renomination of 
Mayor Low was deserved. He has come nearer to fulfilling 
the pledges upon which he was elected than any Mayor the 
city has had in fifty years. He has given New York a decent, 
honest, efficient and businesslike administration — "the best 



IN PRAISE OF ROOSEVELT 193 

this city has ever had," in the words of Mr. Jerome, on August 
5th. The talk of unpopularity can only be tested convincingly 
in the election. 

The prospects were not unfavorable. But if the Fusion 
forces expected from the new leader of Tammany the 
blundering of Croker's later campaigns they were unde- 
ceived. Miu"phy named for Mayor George B. McClellan, 
treasurer of the Bridge Board, ex-president of the Board 
of Aldermen, and later a Representative in Congress, a 
man popular with his fellow-members, of excellent ap- 
pearance and education, the son of the famous Union 
general who in 1864 had been the Democratic candidate 
for President against Abraham Lincoln. Of Mr. McClel- 
lan The World said: 

The Tammany candidate's fair-sounding speech must be 
judged in the light of his indorsement two years ago of the 
shameless administration of the "unswerving and fearless 
Democrat, Robert A. Van Wyck," and his unblushing declara- 
tion then that "we have nothing for which to apologize"; 
not even for Devery and the "red lights," not even for the Ice 
Trust and the Vice Trust! Mayor Low did not state it too 
strongly in declaring in his Brooklyn speech that "the nomina- 
tion this year of the man who said that is a challenge thrown 
in the face of the city by Tammany Hall." 

But Murphy's crowning stroke was to draw from the 
Fusion ticket two Democratic city officials and candidates 
for re-election, Edward M. Grout, the Comptroller, and 
Charles V. Fornes, president of the Board of Aldermen, 
later a Representative. Both consented; Fusion was 
obliged to seek new candidates. Of ]Mr. Grout The World 
said: 

[His] public self-degradation in attending the Tammany 
notification proceedings and pledging his support to the boss's 
puppet candidate for Mayor is lamentable to those who have 
felt confidence in his sincerity and his unselfish high purposes. 



194 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Hugh McLaughlin, the veteran boss of Brooklyn, was 
no snow-white lamb, but he had preserved a few preju- 
dices — among them a dislike for protected vice. In state 
matters he had generally acted with the rural Democrats 
against Tammany. He believed in '^Brooklyn auton- 
omy,'' and did not wish the Tammany tiger to "cross 
the bridge.'' A picturesque figure was the taciturn old 
boss, sitting day by day in the back room of Kerrigan's 
auction-rooms, a dismantled church on Willoughby Street. 
McLaughlin was against Murphy with something of an 
old man's feeling toward an upstart. He faced a revolt 
within the Kings County organization, headed by Patrick 
H. McCarren, the ''Tim Sullivan of Brooklyn," who "with 
all a gambler's desperation staked his political future" 
upon the indorsement of Grout and Fornes by the Demo- 
cratic committee. McLaughlin, who expressed contempt 
for the two backsliders, held the committee against them. 
It was his last exploit; perhaps no finer feat of its kind 
was ever performed by a boss than this victorious stand 
of the old lion of Willoughby Street, whose "noble 
victory," useless as it proved, won The WorMs high com- 
mendation. 

Into this hopeless campaign The World threw itself 
with as much vigor as it had done six years before. 
Every effort was made to stir the pride of the people in 
the fact that theirs was no mean city, and that for the 
first time in years they could look at its local government 
without a blush: 

Carl Schurz, in his admirable letter in support of the Fusion 
ticket, said the "Low administration has given the world 
the comforting assurance that the perplexing problems of good 
municipal government in the large American cities can prac- 
tically be solved." And yet now, he exclaims, with pardonable 
heat, "the Tammany freebooters ask us to put that municipal 
government again under their piratical control!" 

This is the heart of the issue: Shall we keep on or turn back? 



IN PRAISE OF ROOSEVELT 195 

Will the friends of honest, decent, efficient, businesslike 
municipal government fight the battle through and secure 
firmly the fruits of victory in two years more of 'Hhe best 
administration New York ever had," or will they lose all that 
has been gained and dash the hopes of municipal reformers, 
not only here, but throughout the country? 

The question was kept before the people whether 
Mr. McClellan, ''this young protege of the bosses, who 
had always ' done as he was told ' and never shown a sign 
of political or personal independence, was likely to suc- 
ceed, where Grant, Gilroy and even Hewitt failed." 
Short must be the memory of the man who could not 
remember how, six years earlier, when it was known that 
Van Wyck was elected Mayor, ''New York streets wit- 
nessed such a saturnalia of diabolic rejoicing" as they had 
never seen before, and how every saloon and every dive 
was celebrating "the triumph of the combined and 
conspiring evil forces of the community." Did the 
people wish the repetition of that scene of rejoicing? 
If they did it was because they were led astray by the 
name of Democracy. To such readers there was an 
especial appeal: 

The supporters of Mr. McClellan proclaim that his election 
would have a great influence upon the State and national elec- 
tions next year. 

The World admits it. It goes further, and declares its 
deliberate conviction that the success of the Tammany ticket 
on Tuesday next would destroy any chance that the Democrats 
might otherwise have of electing a President in 1904- 

What are the lessons of history? 

Why was Tilden nominated and elected in 1876 against the 
bitter opposition of John Kelly and the Tammany organiza- 
tion? Why was Cleveland nominated and elected in 1884 and 
again in 1892, in spite of the angry protest of Tammany Hall, 
voiced by Bourke Cockran and Richard Croker? 

Was it not because the Democrats of the nation respected 



196 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

and trusted Tilden and Cleveland '^for the enemies they had 
made"? Was not Tammany hostility regarded as a certificate 
of merit? 



In the election the Democrats of Brooklyn did ad- 
mirably; they furnished only about one thousand of the 
sixty-two thousand plurality which made McClellan 
Mayor of New York for two years, with a re-election 
for four years in 1905 — a longer period than any Mayor 
had held that office since Richard Varick of 1789. "The 
moral of this defeat/^ The World reflected when the figures 
were announced, '4s plain to read: The next Fusion candi- 
date for Mayor must he a Democrat if the anti-Tammany 
forces wish to carry the election. There are some preju- 
dices and predilections that are proof against argument.'' 
This reasoning had much to do with The WorMs attitude 
six years later in favoring the election of William J. Gaynor, 
as a Democratic chief magistrate of a Democratic city. 

Thousands of Democrats who proved Murphy's skill 
in nominating Mr. McClellan by voting for him in the 
expectation that he would be his own man, thousands who 
did not join the rejoicings in the death of reform, be- 
wailed their action after the first of January, when McClel- 
lan appointed a cabinet named by the boss in a deal with 
the SuUivans, the lords of the lower East Side. Certain 
appointments credited to Mr. McClellan's own choice, 
as those for tenement commissioner, health commissioner, 
police commissioner, and others, drew less criticism, 
though these men were not in all cases able to control 
their departments. The five borough presidents elected 
at the same time were John F. Ahearn, Louis Haffen, 
Joseph Cassidy, Martin W. Littleton, and George Crom- 
well. Of these five men the three first named were on 
the lowest level of unfitness. And they were charter 
members of the Board of Estimate, through which New 
York is practically governed by commission. 



IN PRAISE OF ROOSEVELT 197 

This period of The WorMs editorial history closes as it 
began in praise of Roosevelt. The Northern Securities 
merger was an outgrowth of the semi-panic of 1901. A 
contest having arisen between two groups of stock- 
jobbers for the control of the Northern Pacific Railway, 
the price of its shares rose on 'Change to one thousand 
dollars each. Punters who had sold short were ruined 
if the day closed without relief. It came in a notifica- 
tion from Morgan interests that peace had been declared. 
The truce was followed by a treaty that united the 
Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, and the Burlington 
in a holding company, whose shares were divided in pro- 
portions which involved gross stock-watering. The death 
of competition and the substitution of a carrying monop- 
oly in a group of great agricultural states was, however, 
paramount to this consideration. Because the agree- 
ment set up monopoly the Supreme Court, upholding 
Judge Thayer, ordered it dissolved and its stock-holdings 
redivided. 

Ungrudging as was The World^s praise of the energy 
of the Roosevelt administration in pushing the merger 
case, it could not be blind to the weapons the decision 
placed in the hands of the President. It said on March 
15, 1904, the day after the announcement: 

Politically, the effect of the decision can hardly be exag- 
gerated. It will greatly strengthen President Roosevelt as a 
candidate. People will love him for the enemies he has made. 
Mr. Cleveland lost popularity among the Democratic masses 
by not enforcing this law. Mr. Roosevelt will gain by enforcing 
it. It cannot now be said that the Republican party is owned 
by the trusts. It cannot now be said that Mr. Roosevelt is 
controlled by them. His prospects of re-election were not small 
before; they are brighter to-day, and, barring some act of 
impetuous unwisdom on his part before November, brighter 
they will remain. But in the last analysis it is not the President 
who has triumphed. It is not the court. It is not the law. 



198 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

It is the people — the plain people who elect Presidents and set 
up courts and through their representatives ordain the laws. 

Inseparable from the possession of power is the pos- 
sibility of its abuse. Discussing this consequence of the 
decision, The World said, on March 20th: 

The power of the President even before the Supreme Court 
decision in the Northern Securities case was enormous beyond 
precedent. 

He could make peace and war, frame treaties, with a Senate 
cowed into merely indorsing his acts, or form alhances with 
foreign powers. He was commander-in-chief of the army and 
navy and of the far larger army of over 200,000 civil appointees, 
holding the very means of subsistence at his pleasure or the 
pleasure of his subordinates. Powers and attributes gravi- 
tated to him as the nation grew, until he was in effect the 
most potent ruler on earth. 

Now comes this new power over corporations, a power 
never dreamed of by the framers of the Constitution. He 
can unsheath a Damocles sword and, chief of a party as well 
as head of the people, can hang it over the head of the finance, 
the commerce and industry of the nation. . . . 

From the foundation of the Government the President has 
been Executive. Through his control of the Attorney-General 
he can select cases for presentation to the court; he is therefore 
largely Judiciary. By executive order he commands the service 
pension at which Congress balked; he is therefore Legislature. 
He is Everything. He is Power. He is Patronage. He is 
Protection. He is Privilege. . . . 

Whatever their past politics may have been, many newspaper 
organs of both parties are to-day all for State rights. They 
are seeking comfort in the fact that the decision was made by 
a single vote, forgetting that the income-tax decision was made 
and remade by one vote, that Mr. Hayes was made President 
by one vote — and the vote of a Supreme Court Justice. 

They are vigorously imploring Congress to disenact that 
which it has enacted and to reopen for Plutocracy and Monop- 
oly the golden way that led straight toward the Universal Trust. 



IN PRAISE OF ROOSEVELT 199 

Not more remarkable than the amazing futiUty of such a 
demand is its financial unwisdom. . . . 

Against the new danger what means may avail? There are 
two remedies. One can he applied at once by public opinion. 
One is more slowly to be reached through legislation. 

There should be specific statutes prohibiting the acceptance of 
campaign contributions fro7n corporations. The infractions of 
such statutes should be heavily punishable as a criminal offense. 

The term of the President shoidd be six years, and he should 
be ineligible to succeed himself; thus there would be removed the 
temptation to use this great power for his personal ends. 

And for the quicker remedy: 

It is to be sought in steadfast resistance by the press and by the 
public to demagogues and agitators of the Bryan type, who, by 
appeals to passion and to prejudice, to poverty and to discontent, 
by misrepresentation and the abuse of the prosperous, by clamor 
and by false teaching, seek profit or place or power at the cost of 
the common weal. 

The Presidential power over corporations was to be 
an issue in the coming election to an extent not fully dis- 
covered even in these forebodings. 



XV 

ALTON BROOKS PARKER 

1904 

How Parker Became a "Favorite Son" — High Finance and Practical Politics 
Take Possession of His Campaign — Parker^s Gold Telegram to the St. 
Louis Convention — The Nomination of Judge Herrick for Governor — 
Cortelyou and the Republican Campaign Fund — The Famous "Ten Ques- 
tions" — Judge Parker's Challenge — President RooseveWs Unqualified 
Denial — His Re-election the "Triumph of Hope Over Experience." 

Alton B. Parker was the only Democrat who carried 
New York State on a general ticket for sixteen years. 

In 1897, immediately following the first Bryan debacle, 
Mr. Parker was chosen chief judge of the Court of Appeals 
by sixty thousand plurality on a state ticket. Men grew 
old and died, children matured to men and women before 
the feat was repeated by a Democrat. A monotony of 
defeat fell upon the party. It soon became a common 
thing for disheartened leaders, looking back over the 
record of disaster, to linger at the figures for 1897 and to 
see in Judge Parker an ^^ availability.^' 

Judge Parker owed his victory mainly to Senator 
Piatt's nomination of a Pepublican candidate for Mayor 
of New York against Seth Low and to the division of the 
Low vote between Parker and his opponent. His personal 
strength, except in one or two rural counties, had nothing 
to do with his triumph. But if Judge Parker had been 
merely an accident the Democratic party would not have 
been considering him seven years later as a Moses to lead 
it out of bondage. He was a strong chief judge of the 



ALTON BROOKS PARKER 201 

highest court of New York, a court that had never fallen 
into full control of either Tammany boss or Republican 
machine. He was broad in his views of public questions, 
and his influence was liberal in decisions upon constitu- 
tional questions affecting the rights of working-men. 

For two years Mr. Bryan had renewed in addresses 
in every part of the country his fight for free silver — a 
hopeless fight, but full of hope for the favorites of priv- 
ilege. The World protested against having this burden 
tied about the neck of Democracy. The fact that in 1903 
most of the Democratic state conventions had dropped 
the ''body of death ^^ from their platforms encouraged 
it to hope that ''sense, sanity and sagacity will rule the 
National Convention this year and give the party at least 
a fighting chance to win by deserving to win." 

Of all candidates The World would have preferred 
Mr. Cleveland. He was the man whose name meant not 
only victories, but the issues that had won victories, and 
particularly the issue of the reform of the tariff. 

But Mr. Cleveland, as in 1896, was impossible even if 
he had not refused to be considered. The Bryan elements 
were still in full control of the party in the West, and, 
while they might consent to the nomination of a can- 
didate representing the other wing of the party, they 
would have interposed to Cleveland's name an absolute 
veto. In the circumstances the legend of Parker's 
strength in New York, aided by some deft preliminary 
work by his supporters, made him the leading figure in the 
field. 

The World was not optimistic of the outcome. Some 
encouragement was afforded by the action of Governor 
Odell in taking the chairmanship of the Republican State 
Committee. 

From the point of view of partisan advantage [said The 
World] Democrats can afford to regard this deal with com- 
14 



202 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

placency. Gov. Odell is President Roosevelt's only rival as a 
vote-reducer. In 1896 McKinley carried New York by 268,469. 
Two years later Roosevelt squeezed through on Croker's bull- 
headed blundering by less than 18,000. At his first election 
as Governor, in 1900, Odell had a plurality of 111,000. Two 
years later he lost more than 100,000 of this, receiving only 
8,803. With these two majority-choppers united in ^'conducting 
the campaign" the Democrats ought to be able to carry New 
York by a rousing plurality. 

But even the faint hope awakened by an adversary's 
blunder was darkened by worse than blunders on the 
other side. In the pre-convention stage Mr. Parker was 
silent upon the issues of the campaign. The World urged 
him to speak out, assuring him that the people were not 
to be won in a still hunt. His candidacy had fallen into 
the hands of a combination of high finance, represented by 
August Belmont and Thomas F. Ryan, and practical 
politics, represented by William F. Sheehan, ex-boss of 
Buffalo. They doubtless counseled silence; and at the 
New York convention in April they played politics by a 
bid for Western support, against which The World 
promptly protested: 

1. The omission of a declaration in favor of the historic 
Democratic principle of sound money seems to us a great 
mistake. 

2. The abandonment of the protest against the Philippine 
acquisition and the general policy of imperial colonialism, 
which was so justly and forcibly made in the Kansas City plat- 
form, is a second mistake of short-sighted politics — ^more and 
worse "trimming." 

3. The declaration of "opposition to trusts and combinations 
that oppress the people and stifle healthy industrial competi- 
tion" is feeble and pointless. 

4. The selection of the four delegates-at-large was another 
mistake. The names are disappointing. They will command 
neither respect at home nor influence at St. Louis. [They 



ALTON BROOKS PARKER 203 

were David B. Hill, Senator Edward Murphy, Jr., George 
Ehret, a wealthy brewer, and James W. Ridgway.] 

To add to the incongruities between the platform and the 
men selected to represent it the name of James T. Woodward, 
the astute President of the Hanover Bank and a prominent 
member of the Morgan syndicate that bedeviled President 
Cleveland's administration — a combination which The World 
had the pleasure of smashing — appears as the first Presidential 
elector-at-large! Why and wherefore Woodward? 

The World forced Woodward off the electoral ticket. 
In effect it forced the party to stand by sound money. 
But much mischief was already done. 

When on July 6th the Democratic national convention 
met in St. Louis the fact became manifest that, though 
Mr. Bryan was not to be the candidate, his spirit ruled, 
and that the party purposed to go down to a third defeat 
without disavowing free silver. The World had con- 
tinued urging Judge Parker to speak out for 'Hhe accom- 
plished fact" of the gold standard. On the eve of the 
adoption of the platform it reminded him that ten 
words from him would insure a sound -money resolu- 
tion. 

The convention that nominated Mr. Roosevelt had 
thus challenged Democracy: 

The maintenance of the gold standard, established by the Republican 
party, cannot safely be committed to the Democratic party, which 
resisted its adoption and has never given any proof since that time 
of belief in it or fidelity to it. 

The answer of the St. Louis convention was silence. 
There were delegates who wished a plank in the platform 
recognizing the gold standard as an established fact, but 
Mr. Bryan defeated them in an all-night struggle. On 
July 9th — the day he received the nomination upon the 
final ballot — Judge Parker sent this telegram, which was 
given out the following morning: 



204 THE STORY OP A PAGE 

Hon. William F. Sheehan, 
Hotel Jefferson. 

I regard the gold standard as firmly and irrevocably established, 
and shall act accordingly if the act of the convention to-day shall 
be ratified by the people. 

As the platform is silent on the subject, my view should be known 
to the convention, and if it is proved to be unsatisfactory to the 
majority I request you to decline the nomination for me so that 
another may be nominated before adjournment. 

Alton B. Parker. 

It was too late to retreat. Democracy was committed 
in roundabout fashion to sound money. The Parker 
telegram was presented to the convention, and the follow- 
ing reply was drafted by John Sharp Williams, of Mis- 
sissippi : 

The platform adopted by this convention is silent on the question 
of the monetary standard because it is not regarded by us as a possible 
issue in this campaign, and only campaign issues are mentioned in 
the platform. Therefore there is nothing in the views expressed by 
you in the telegram just received which would preclude a man enter- 
taining them from accepting a nomination on said platform. 

Not an auspicious beginning for a campaign was this 
belated and grudging avowal! 

There was still the Governorship of New York to be 
considered. The Republicans selected for that honor 
State Senator Frank Higgins, a man of good legislative 
record who could be trusted not to be too restive under the 
machine yoke. Not without much urging Mr. Higgins 
was later to do the state as fine a service as lies to the 
credit of its greatest executives. 

Of the choice of a Democratic candidate The World 
spoke in reminiscent mood: 

David B. Hill . . . nominated himself for Governor twice, 
and was twice elected. He allowed Croker to nominate him 
a third time, and was overwhelmingly defeated. ... 



ALTON BROOKS PARKER 205 

Hill and Croker together nominated Roswell P. Flower for 
Governor, a man who could not write a grammatical sentence, 
but who had the money to secure Croker, and through him the 
nomination. 

In 1898, when Robert B. Van Wyck, the most corrupt and 
incompetent Mayor New York has known since the Tweed 
Ring, was scandalizing the party in this city, Croker, with Hill's 
acquiescence, nominated Augustus Van Wyck for Governor. 
No grosser insult to pubUc decency could have been conceived. 
. . . Yet such was the vitality of the Democratic party that 
this candidate came within 18,000 votes of being elected. 

Two years later Hill nominated his law partner, Stanchfield, 
a cheap country politician, the defender of Brockway's enormi- 
ties in the Elmira Reformatory, an advocate of imperialism, 
the type of everything that a Democratic leader should not be. 

Why not let the Democracy this year make its otvti nom- 
ination? 

In 1902 there was every prospect of Democratic victory. . . . 
But Hill had White-House hopes himself at that time. He 
did not want a candidate of Presidential size, and so he nomi- 
nated Coler, . . . against whom even Odell managed to scrape 
out a victory by 8,000 plurality. . . . 

The question was settled by the selection of Judge 
D-Cady Herrick, of Albany, a man of marked ability. 
Judge Herrick, The World said, had ^^wide knowledge of 
the State government. He has courage. He fought Hill. 
He fought Tammany in the past. He has no passion for 
money-making. He is above pecuniary influences. He 
wears no man's collar.'' 

The tariff was the great historic issue upon which 
Democracy had twice carried the country. By its folly 
at St. Louis it was jockeyed into a defensive position 
upon finance. Vain was the effort to draw attention to 
the purpose of privilege to retain its hold. ^^Mr. Roose- 
velt," said The Worlds ^'adopts the cant of the spellbinder 
about the tariff as a prop to the standard of living of our 
wage-earners (the Carnegies, the Pricks and the Schwabs)^ 



206 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

but he does it with an air of sheepishness which shows 
that the Harvard free-trader is a little ashamed of his 
enforced disguise. '^ Useless was the attempt to get 
people interested in the facts as to the recent hard times, 
that 'Hhe panic which occurred under the McKinley 
tariff was caused by the Republican Sherman silver 
law, and that under the Wilson tariff the times began to 
improve." The tariff was not the issue that counted 
most. 

Toward the end of the campaign the growing scandal of 
the appointment of George B. Cortelyou as chairman of 
the Republican National Committee made a new issue 
that superseded even silver. Here The World succeeded 
better than with the tariff in shifting the fighting-ground; 
and, though the contest was lost, momentous results have 
continued to flow out of the controversy. 

Mr. Cortelyou, beginning work in Washington as a 
stenographer in the Post-office Department, had risen to 
be the Secretary to the President, and later Secretary of 
the Department of Commerce and Labor, under which 
the work of collating facts concerning trusts was carried 
on by the Bureau of Corporations. The impropriety of 
taking the head of this department to be the '^fat-fryer" 
of a campaign for protected corporations scarcely needed 
to be stated. 

On October 1st Joseph Pulitzer personally signed in 
The World an editorial article addressing to President 
Roosevelt ten questions which have become famous : 

1. How much has the Beef Trust contributed to Mr. 
Cortelyou? 

2. How much has the Paper Trust contributed to Mr. 
Cortelyou? 

3. How much has the Coal Trust contributed to Mr. 
Cortelyou? 

4. How much has the Sugar Trust contributed to Mr. 
Cortelyou? 



ALTON BROOKS PARKER 207 

5. How much has the Oil Trust contributed to Mr. 
Cortelyou? 

6. How much has the Tobacco Trust contributed to Mr. 
Cortelyou? 

7. How much has the Steel Trust contributed to Mr. 
Cortelyou? 

8. How much has the Insurance Trust contributed to Mr. 
Cortelyou? 

9. How much have the national banks contributed to Mr. 
Cortelyou? 

10. How much have the six great railroad trusts contributed 
to Mr. Cortelyou? 

^'I observe/' the article continued, '*by your letter of 
acceptance that in spite of the secrecy and silence of your 
Bureau of Corporations you are still in favor of publicity." 
Mr. Pulitzer suggested that President Roosevelt, if he 
really favored publicity, should write a letter to Mr. 
Cortelyou demanding that he make public all the informa- 
tion he possessed concerning contributions by corporations 
or others interested in Republican success, or concerning 
agreements, express or implied, entered into with such 
contributors. If the information were given, the article 
continues — 

. . . would it not fully explain why, after 583 days, there 
has been no official publicity as to the affairs of the corporations 
whose business has been investigated by Mr, Cortelyou and 
his successor? 

Would it not explain why the corporations that opposed you 
in March are supporting you now? 

Would it not explain the rearrangement of your Cabinet? . . . 

Would it not explain the princely contributions to your 
campaign fund which are pouring in from every corner of the 
country? 

Would it not explain why all the kings of finance who were 
clamoring for your political life now believe that the best 
interests of the coimtry will be served by your election? . . . 

Would it not reveal to the American people how preposterous 



208 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

is your pretext of danger to the Republic from foreign enemies 
and how real is the danger to the Republic from its enemies 
at home? 

Of the workings of the Bureau of Corporations as a 
preliminary to trust legislation or court prosecution the 
article said: 

The first thing to do, as you said in your speech at Wheeling, 
was to "find out the facts." Your initial step was to appoint 
as your Secretary of Commerce your private secretary, George 
B. Cortelyou. The Bureau of Corporations was organized 
February 26, 1903 — ^more than 19 months, more than 80 weeks 
— exactly 583 days ago — ^yes, exactly 583 days ago. 

Will you kindly tell the country: 

1. After these 583 days of supposed activity and official 
duty how much more does the public know about the conduct 
and management of these great corporations than it knew 
before? 

2. After these 583 days of supposed activity and official duty 
what single witness has been subpoenaed? . . . 

3. After these 583 days of supposed activity and official duty 
what documentary evidence has been produced? 

4. After these 583 days of supposed activity and official duty 
what corporation magnate has been compelled to testify under 
oath as to secret rebates on freight charges or other acts of 
conspiracy in restraint of trade? . . . 

Is there a corporation in the United States, Mr. President, 
whose affairs are administered in greater secrecy than are the 
affairs of your Bureau of Corporations? 

Yet in your letter of acceptance you have — may I call it the 
magnificent audacity? — to declare of the act creating this 
bureau and of the related acts: 

"These laws are now being administered with entire 
efficiency." 

The cry had been heard that moneyed interests were 
building up a vast fund to elect Judge Parker; so much 
harm the association of Belmont and Sheehan and Ryan 



ALTON BROOKS PARKER 209 

had done him. ''Cortelyou" was the retort. The World 
hammered at these queries day after day. Finally upon 
October 24th Judge Parker, in a speech at his home in 
Esopus, asked, ^' Would the public interests be safe in 
the hands of a party the greater part of whose campaign 
funds have been contributed by corporations and trusts?" 
Of this speech The World said: 

Better late than never! At last, within two weeks of the 
election, the foremost representatives of the Democratic party 
have struck the true keynote of an aggressive campaign: 
"Cortelyou and Corruption!" 

The vigorous speech of Judge Parker on Monday, following 
the virile address of Mr. Cleveland in Carnegie Hall, showed 
that at last the leaders imderstand and appreciate the real 
burning issue of this election. . . . 

How the country is governed by interests Judge Parker 
indicated with perfect clearness in his speech on Monday: 

''When such forces united to furnish the money which they 
are promised will control the election, their purpose is as clear 
as noonday. It is to buy protection, to purchase four years 
more of profit by tariff taxation, or four years more of extortion 
from the public by means of monopoly." 

Finally on October 29th Judge Parker said with a cer- 
tain solemnity of phrase: ''The trusts are furnishing the 
money with which they hope to control the election. I 
am sorry to be obliged to say it: If it were not true I 
would not say it to gain the Presidency or any earthly 
reward." 

Upon the "Great Moral Issue of the Campaign" The 
World on November 5th summed up the campaign in an 
editorial article of a full page. This review said: 

The President does not explain why the protected industries 
are pouring money into his campaign fund. 

He does not explain why the trust potentates that were 
clamoring for his political life six months ago are now enthusi- 



210 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

astically supporting his candidacy and generously assisting in 
financing it. 

He does not explain the extraordinary changes in his Cabinet 
made in the interests of the corporations — the removal of Mr. 
Knox to the Senate; the appointment of Mr. Metcalf, the 
political agent of the Southern Pacific, to be Secretary of Com- 
merce; the appointment of Mr. Morton, a vice-president of 
the Santa Fe, to be Secretary of the Navy. 

He does not explain why there has been no publicity during 
the 619 days of supposed investigation by the Bureau of 
Corporations. 

He does not answer the ten questions asked by The Worlds 

He does not deny that Mr. Cortelyou, who has been Secretary 
of Commerce and is now Chairman of his Campaign Com- 
mittee, is to be Postmaster-General, to make important con- 
tracts with railroads that have contributed or have refused to 
contribute to the Republican campaign fund. 

Experienced politicians assumed that Judge Parker 
possessed proof of his assertion. He doubtless did have 
assurances that proofs would be furnished; but he was 
disappointed. Had he been able to cite one-half of the 
evidence now in existence he need not have been so 
badly beaten. 

Shortly before midnight of November 4th President 
Roosevelt issued his famous reply to Judge Parker. With 
his characteristic skill in controversy he first restated 
Judge Parker's challenge to his own satisfaction, ignoring 
the exact wording of the main charge, and to the attack as 
thus shifted he replied: ''The statements made by Mr. 
Parker are atrociously and unqualifiedly false.'' 

This audacious denial produced its intended effect. 
Nothing in recent political history is comparable to the 
stir it made, with the exception of the "Rum, Romanism, 
and Rebellion" incident at the close of Mr. Blaine's cam- 
paign in 1884. The word of a President carries enor- 
mous weight. Mr. Roosevelt would in any case have 



ALTON BROOKS PARKER 211 

been elected; but Judge Parker lost votes by failing to 
prove his case. 

Mr. Roosevelt was elected by a plurality of 2,545,515, 
not so much because Democrats voted for him as because 
they did not vote. The Bryan wing of the party was 
disgusted with the control of the campaign by Judge 
Parker's Wall Street friends, and they ill concealed or 
openly avowed their dissatisfaction. The number of 
ballots cast was smaller than it had been eight years 
before. In New York Judge Herrick was badly beaten, and, 
like Judge Parker, obliged to return to private practice. 

So the election was over. Reduction of taxation was 
again postponed. Reforms were sidetracked for the 
Juggernaut car of the trusts. 

Upon Mr. Roosevelt's triumph The World commented : 

It can truly be said of the people^s choice of Mr. Roosevelt, 
as Disraeli said of the man who married a second time: "It 
is a triumph of hope over experience." If President Roosevelt 
will be satisfied with this splendid vote of confidence, the 
climax of his whole career, the greatest personal triumph ever 
won by any President — if he will strive for four years for the 
place in history to which his earlier ideals would have bid him 
aspire — the popular mandate resisted and deplored by Demo- 
crats and Independents may yet redound to the welfare and 
the true glory of the Republic. 

It added that ^'his announcement that he will not be a 
candidate for re-election is a first, firm and most sagacious 
step in the right direction." 

So The World was beaten in its fight — badly beaten. 
When next it met the President it was to win for itself 
and for the independent press of the country a notable 
victory. 



XVI 



"equitable corruption" 



1905-1906 

James Hazen Hyde and the Struggle for the C(mtrol of the Equitable — 
'' The World'' Moves for a General House-Cleaning — Sale of the Company 
to Thomas F. Ryan — Governor Higgins's Reluctance to Move for an 
Investigation — The Armstrong Committee and Mr. Hughes — Mr. Perkins 
and the Republican Campaign Fund — The Permanent Good Results of the 
Probe — The Equitable Now in the Control of J. Pierpont Morgan — What 
Remains to Be Done. 

The World^s unique achievement in 1905-06 was its 
success in forcing, single-handed, the reform of life in- 
surance in New York State, against the opposition of the 
Governor and the Legislature and great business interests. 

The Equitable Life Assurance Society was and is one 
of the strongest in the world. It was a proprietary com- 
pany. It had vast assets whose control was an important 
factor in finance, and over this control a dispute broke 
out in the directorate in the latter part of 1904. It became 
public in an attack upon James Hazen Hyde, son of 
Henry B. Hyde, who had inherited his majority stock. 
James Waddell Alexander was the president of the society 
and the trustee to whom the senior Hyde had left the 
control of his son's shares during a period he thought 
sufficient to develop independent judgment. At the end 
of the trusteeship, which was now approaching, Hyde 
could oust the president and upset all his arrangements. 
This was the real reason of the attack upon him. The 
feud was at once embittered by counter-charges in Hyde's 
interest against the Alexander management. 



u 



EQUITABLE CORRUPTIONS^ 213 



Hyde was an esthetic soul with literary and artistic 
tastes, no match in strength or cunning for the capitalists 
who used the Equitable millions for investment. The 
campaign against him gave The World its opportunity 
for a wider purpose. The vastness of the undertaking is 
indicated in the first of the series of editorial articles, 
headed '^ Equitable Corruption,'' which forced a remedy: 

The most astounding, far-reaching financial scandal known 
to the history of the United States is approaching its climax in 
the battle for the control of the surplus and assets of the 
Equitable Life Assurance Society. 

It is a scandal which directly involves the savings of 600,000 
policy-holders and the 2,500,000 or 3,000,000 ultimate benefi- 
ciaries of these policies. . . . 

The charges against James H. Hyde are: 

First — That the cost of his dinner to M. Cambon, the 
French Ambassador; his expenses in Paris, and his French 
Ball at Sherry's were charged to and paid out of the Equitable's 
advertising account. 

Second — That he placed on the Equitable's pay-roll his 
personal employees and servants, who rendered no service to 
the Equitable for the salaries they received. 

Summed up in the language of the petition to Attorney- 
General Mayer, the charges against the notable financiers in 
the Equitable directorate are that the funds of the society were 
"wastefully and wrongfully taken" by them. The specifica- 
tions of this general accusation are numerous: 

First — That the stock in the Equitable Trust Company, 
owned by directors in the Equitable Society, and worth $150 
per share, was sold by them to the Equitable Society for $500 
per share, and that the said officials ''were benefited to the 
amount of $2,000,000 or more." 

Second — That Jacob H. Schiff, through his firm of Kuhn, 
Loeb & Co., sold to the Equitable Society bonds and securities 
of great value and received ''large sums in the way of com- 
missions, of which sums said Jacob H. Schiff has received a 
part." 

Third — That the securities of E. H. Harriman's system of 



214 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

railroads and the Gould railroads were sold to the Equitable 
Society, although Mr. Harriman and Mr. Gould were members 
of the Board of Directors. 

Fourth — That by organizing banks and trust companies, 
the stock of which they own, and by depositing the money of 
the Equitable Society in these banks and trust companies, 
individual directors personally profited. 

Fifth — That individual directors used the funds of the 
Equitable Society to secure control of great corporations, which 
they reorganized, and then sold to the Equitable Society bonds 
and other securities of the reorganization. 

The World saw in the quarrel the opportunity to secure 
an investigation by a legislative committee of the whole 
subject of life insurance as conducted in New York. 
The insiders in the Equitable would have been more than 
satisfied with an investigation by the State Insurance 
Department. This important office had long been the 
prey of hack politicians. ^^Does any legislator think/ ^ 
The World demanded, ''that the 600,000 poficy-holders 
will be satisfied with a secret inquiry by a Lou Payn 
deputy in the Insurance Department or by a committee 
of the very directors, some of whom may have forever 
forfeited their rights to act in that capacity?' ' A com- 
mittee of the directors, the Frick Committee, was, in 
fact, appointed. It dipped gingerly into the mud and 
made recommendations, excellent as far as they went, 
which the directors rejected. 

Day after day The World hammered at the disclosures. 
Day after day it reminded the Governor of his duty. It 
was to be Mr. Higgins's unkindly fate to be subjected to 
an ordeal more stern than had faced any predecessor since 
the Civil War, to hesitate long, to put his name, finally, 
to some of the best laws ever passed in the state, and yet 
to be denied a renomination when his party was in the 
best repute it had enjoyed for years. 

The World applied other pressure by printing the names 



'^EQUITABLE CORRUPTION^' 215 

of the directors of the Equitable; though these names 
included some of the best known in New York — ^names 
such as Jacob H. Schiff , John Jacob Astor, Levi P. Morton, 
Alfred G. Vanderbilt, E. H. Harriman, and Marvin 
Hughitt — nearly all were dummy directors. They did 
not own the stock in the company that would legally 
qualify them to act. Some were doubly dummies, taking 
no share in the administration of the company; some were 
in schemes of promotion and investment, in which the 
company was staged as the rural dunce who buys the 
gold brick. Under this management the returns to policy- 
holders had fallen from the best standards, though their 
principal was not impaired. How the deal was operated 
The World explained: 

When Mr. James Hazen Hyde had come of age he was elected 
Vice-President of the Equitable, the office which his father had 
honorably filled for so many years. . . . The owners of rail- 
roads, the officers of banks, the partners of banking firms, 
saw in young Hyde's weakness, his vanity, his social aspira- 
tions, his fads, the opportunity for the^n to use for their own 
venal purposes the funds which should have been held sacred 
to the widows and orphans of the future. . . . 

These men made James Hazen Hyde director in their trust 
companies, banks and railroads. In return Mr. Hyde had them 
recorded in the stock book of the Equitable as the owners of 
five shares each of his stock, and thus ostensibly qualified them 
to be trustees of this great fiduciary fund. 

All told, they made James Hazen Hyde director in forty-six 
corporations — this young man not yet out of the swaddling 
clothes twined round him by his father's will. 

They made him director in these railroads: 

The Southern Pacific and the Union Pacific and their depen- 
dent lines, the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, the 
Oregon Short Line Company, the Texas and Pacific, the Mis- 
souri Pacific, the Wabash, the Western Maryland, the Long 
Island, the Delaware and Hudson, the Manhattan Elevated, 
the New York City Railway Company, the Metropolitan 



216 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Securities Company, which controls the surface lines of New 
York; the constituent companies of the Brooklyn Rapid Tran- 
sit system and the London Underground Railway. 

They made him director in these banks: 

National Bank of Commerce, American Surety Company, 
Fifth Avenue Trust Company, Greenwich Savings Bank, Com- 
mercial Trust Company of Philadelphia, Crocker-Woolworth 
National Bank of San Francisco, Fidelity Trust Company of 
Newark, First National Bank of Chicago, First National Bank 
of Denver, Franklin National Bank of Philadelphia, Mellon 
National Bank of Pittsburg, Missouri Safe-Deposit Company 
of St. Louis, Security Safe-Deposit Company of Boston, Union 
Exchange Bank of New York, Union National Bank of Newark, 
Union Savings Bank of Pittsburg. 

They made him director in these trust companies: 

Equitable Trust Company, Mercantile Trust Company, Mer- 
cantile Safe-Deposit Company, Lawyers' Title and Trust 
Company, Lawyers' Mortgage Company. 
j They made him director in these corporations: 

The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, Continental Insurance 
Company, International Mercantile Marine, or ^'Shipping 
Trust,'' Mercantile Electric Company, Westinghouse Electric 
Company, Western Union Telegraph Company. 

In return Mr. Hyde made them directors in the Equitable 
and gave them in this one directorate immeasurably greater 
opportunity for personal benefit than he had in his forty-six. 

Gradually the old directors of the Equitable had dropped 
out, and in their places were put the dunmiy directors qualified 
by Mr. Hyde's stock, until thirty-seven of the fifty were not 
directors, but directed; not elected, but selected; not the 
guardians, but the manipulators of the assets. . . . 

This was the situation when the clash came between Alex- 
ander and Hyde. The term of the deed of trust was presently 
to expire, when Mr. Alexander's trusteeship would cease and 
Mr. Hyde would become sole controller of the society. 

At this juncture President Alexander presented to Mr. Hyde 
a request, signed by many oflicers of the company, that Mr. 
Hyde should withdraw from the Equitable and surrender its 
control. 



^'EQUITABLE CORRUPTION'^ 217 

Governor Higgins was most reluctant to interfere; but 
by a series of startling disclosures by The World, cul- 
minating in the publication of a report by Superintendent 
Hendricks upon '^the Equitable troubles which had been 
withheld from circulation in the hope that the storm 
would blow over, he was forced in the end to capitulate 
and advise the appointment of a legislative committee to 
investigate ^'Equitable corruption'' and the cognate cor- 
ruption its discussion had revealed. A committee was 
selected with Senator William W. Armstrong, of Rochester, 
as chairman. On the Republican side it was of excellent 
quality. The Democratic members revealed the poverty 
of talent to which the boss system reduces a great city's 
representatives in a great state. Whatever character the 
committee possessed came from the country districts. 
Representing the metropolis, where the insurance busi- 
ness had its home, sat two Democrats of the familiar 
machine type; of one of whom, Dan Riordan, The World 
said his ^'strength in the politics of the lower East Side" 
had come largely from 'Hhe multiple voting of Monk 
Eastman's gang." That such men should be set to 
cleanse and cure insurance corruption seemed a grim joke. 

But the investigation would depend for success upon the 
chief counsel chosen. Another of The World's long 
fights had recently ended in the appointment of a legisla- 
tive committee to investigate the Gas Trust in New York 
as a preliminary to cutting down its charges. The Gas 
Committee had appointed as counsel an attorney little 
known to the people, though of high repute in his profes- 
sion, who had shown in the inquiry a patience and per- 
sistence that brought admirable results. Charles Evans 
Hughes was forty-three years old. He had been a 
teacher, a law professor and lecturer, and was then in 
private practice. 

The. World was asked on behalf of the Armstrong 
Committee to suggest plans for procedure and to name a 

15 



218 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

chief counsel. Flattering as was this recognition of its 
work in forcing the inquiry, acceptance could not be 
considered. Those who represented the committee next 
stated that they had thought of employing Mr. Hughes. 
Would that be satisfactory? Certainly, was the reply. 
All The World wished was action. 

Mr. Hughes was the most appropriate choice that could 
have been made. He was named; in that act the ma- 
jority members made it clear that they were in earnest. 

Mr. Hughes's conduct of the investigation was a legal 
masterpiece. Step by step he led it along, never hurried, 
never impatient, never neglecting to glance down a side- 
path that might flank a concealed position. He seemed 
to care more about eliciting facts than about impressing 
committee-room loungers with his brilliance. The ses- 
sions of the Armstrong Committee often made good read- 
ing next day; listened to, they were tedious, dull, long- 
winded. The chief counsel wound his way through mazes 
of technicalities until from weariness the witness relaxed 
his guard. Then some innocent-seeming question would 
elicit a piece of information that dovetailed into the 
elaborate pattern of facts the state was weaving. 

It might seem that with the forcing of an inquiry the 
need of driving-power on the part of The World was past. 
To reason thus would be to take no account of the dry-rot 
in the Republican state machine, the fruit of long victory 
and the boss system. The men in charge hoped that 
the insurance exposures could be hushed up. They saw 
daily unfolded the proofs of fraud, theft, and perjury 
conamitted in the state to the hurt of its citizens and with 
the connivance of its Banking and Insurance departments; 
yet they thought to keep those departments unchanged 
as the refuge of unfit place-holders and as the protectors 
of dishonest practices. 

The World in the latter part of 1905 was day by day 
urging Governor Higgins to reform these departments 



'^EQUITABLE CORRUPTION'' 219 

with an ax. ^'Your two Superintendents/' it told him, 
^'have been tried before the bar of pubhc opinion and 
found guilty. For six years Francis Hendricks has 
certified to false statements and allowed the seal of the 
State of New York to be stamped upon a snare. For nine 
years Frederick D. Kilburn has supervised the banks and 
trust companies in which the cooked accounts were kept 
and through which policy-holders were robbed. 

^'You are yourself now on trial. . . . You say, 'I 
cannot discuss the matter now. I cannot try a case in 
advance.' There is nothing for you to discuss. There is 
nothing to try. A plea of guilty has been entered. It is 
for you to pronounce the sentence. It should be dis- 
missal." 

Because of the capacity for procrastination of the 
Republican machine men and the Governor, and because 
the county of New York lacked a district attorney capable 
of seeing his opportunity for jailing rich offenders, the 
revelations of the Hughes inquiry failed in part of their 
just effect. Governor Higgins kept Superintendent Hen- 
dricks in the Insurance Department, in spite of proof of 
his incompetency, until May 2, 1906. He then named for 
superintendent Otto Kelsey, another friend of the ma- 
chine, whose incumbency meant that the cleaning up of 
the department would be postponed. 

Toward prosecuting the rich culprits whom the Hughes 
inquiry revealed nothing was done by William Travers 
Jerome as district attorney. The most piquant of his 
exploits in this field was to cause the exculpation of 
George W. Perkins from the charge of larceny from the 
New York Life Insurance Company, by submitting his 
case to the courts practically as a moot question upon 
affidavits of three of Perkins's associates. The sum im- 
properly taken was that indirectly contributed to the 
Roosevelt campaign fund of 1904 by the New York Life. 
The officers of the company, aware of the impropriety of 



220 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

the gift, had sought to conceal it. Mr. Perkins made 
the payment by personal check. After the campaign the 
money was refunded to him by company check. The 
sum taken was not an even $50,000, as in the case of 
two other insurance companies, but $48,702.50. Mr. 
Perkins gave his own money. The impropriety rested in 
his repayment from company funds. 

The World urged Governor Higgins to appoint a special 
prosecutor to punish insurance crimes and to let Mr. 
Jerome ^^ confine himself to the prosecution of such 
criminals as have neither wealth nor social standing. '^ 
But Governor Higgins had no wish to send to jail con- 
tributors to Republican campaign funds, even if they 
did improperly reimburse themselves from policy-holders^ 
money. So the proceedings dragged out to a natural death 
before the Coiu*t of Appeals, which decided for Perkins, 
absolving him on the ground of motive. Justice has been 
obliged to content itself with the moral victory contained 
in Chief Judge Cullen's dissenting opinion that Perkins's 
act in reimbursing himself was as much larceny as if he 
had taken insurance money to buy a necklace for a woman; 
with Perkins's refunding of the money; and with the aid 
the episode has rendered in hastening better laws limiting 
campaign contributions. Since the inquiry Mr. Perkins 
has partially retired from business and has devoted much 
time to Progressive politics and to the forwarding of re- 
form measures. 

But if the results of the investigation were disappoint- 
ing, so far as the Governor and the district attorney were 
concerned, nothing could be more admirable than the 
manner in which the 1906 Legislature rose to its occasion. 
Not without friction, not without opposition, the Arm- 
strong insurance code, based upon the report of the 
committee, was forced through the Legislature and past 
the Governor. No large element in the state would now 
dispute that the net result of the agitation had been 



'^EQUITABLE CORRUPTIONS^ 221 

healthful for insurance and beneficial to policy-holders. 
What had been done may be summarized in The WorMs 
words, printed upon April 28th, the day after Governor 
Higgins signed the last of the Armstrong bills, in No. 202 
of the '^Equitable Corruption '' series: 

The law now calls it crime for any corporation, excepting 
such as are organized for political purposes, to contribute to 
any political fund. No railroad, bank, trust company or manu- 
facturing or mining corporation may hereafter lawfully give 
one cent to politics. Neither may any corporation maintain 
in Albany a secret lobby. 

The crime of perjury has been made more easy of punishment. 
The making of conflicting sworn statements in writing is hence- 
forth presumptive evidence of guilt. . . . The new insurance 
code provides for real representation of the policy-holders, 
for the abolition of deferred dividends, for restriction of the 
cost of getting business, for annual apportionment of surplus, 
for truthful and intelligible statements, for the punishment of 
rebating. 

But the greatest of all in its service to the community is the 
blow the Armstrong laws strike at the system of high finance 
which uses the savings of the people to convert public franchises 
into instruments of oppression. The prohibition of any partici- 
pation by any life-insurance company in syndicates, flotations 
or stock speculations cuts off the great source which Wall 
Street promoters draw upon for speculative funds. 

This summary of the practical achievement of the 
Armstrong Committee and its counsel, Mr. Hughes, was 
followed by a review of the history of the case : 

For beginning the exposure credit is due to James Hazen 
Hyde. Unintentionally young Mr. Hyde has done his best to 
atone for what his father did. The system which Henry B. 
Hyde founded, James Hazen Hyde toppled over. . . . 

Older men, whom he had been taught to look up to, young 
Mr. Hyde had seen take the policy-holders' money to buy 
railroads for themselves and banks and trust companies. He 



222 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

had no desire to accumulate railroads and banks and trust 
companies. What he did want was a special car and flowers 
out of season and French plays. They had taken millions for 
what they wanted. He saw no reason why he should not take 
a few thousands to gratify his taste. . . . 

This shocked the ''staid and conservative '^ financiers, who 
never took the policy-holders' money except to get railroads, 
banks and trusts. . . . 

The Board of Directors of the Equitable stirred in its sluggish 
sleep. The majority were only dummies, invited to seats for 
the respectability of their names and accepting the ofl&ce as an 
honor instead of a responsibility. The honest dummies tried 
to reorganize the company and to make it mutual in fact, as 
it was in law. Against this uprising Hyde and Alexander 
combined their forces, and, dropping recrimination in the face 
of a common danger, rallied enough votes to defeat the re- 
spectable dummies. . . . 

As a concession to public opinion, a committee was appointed, 
with Henry C. Frick as chairman, to hear both Alexander and 
Hyde. ... It found that both charges were sustained, both 
complainants guilty. 

Francis Hendricks, State Superintendent of Insurance, began 
by trying to force a reconciliation between the Hyde and 
Alexander factions. Struggling under the traditions of his 
department and his political training, he yielded, inch by inch, 
until he also investigated and brought to light additional 
facts. . . . 

The World printed the full testimony taken before him, only 
parts of which he had made public. This testimony disclosed 
Senator Depew, former Senator Hill and Elihu Root as recipi- 
ents of Equitable money. It made public the Harriman and 
Schiff syndicates, the thefts by trustees. It lifted the lid. 

Gov. Higgins sought to leave the matter of investigation in 
the hands of Superintendent Hendricks. Day after day he 
announced that he would not authorize a legislative investiga- 
tion. The Legislature was in special session, called to try Jus- 
tice Hooker. The last day of its session came, when Governor 
Higgins realized that no one man can dam back the public 
conscience. So he too yielded and authorized the Legislature 



'^EQUITABLE CORRUPTION'' 223 

to appoint the committee of which Senator Armstrong was 
Chairman, and of which Mr. Charles E. Hughes was later made 
chief counsel. . . . 

At the first meeting of the Armstrong committee President 
McCall appeared and said that he had employed no lawyer, 
because the New York Life needed none. ... He had stood 
against Bryanism, socialism, anarchy, free silver and all 
attacks upon the institutions of the United States, including 
the attempt to elect Judge Parker President in 1904. To aid 
in these noble causes he had regularly contributed the policy- 
holders' money. . . . No sooner was Mr. McCall's confession 
published than public opinion rose in greater wrath. Such 
was the effect that within a fortnight he sent out an official 
statement that never again would he do what he had boasted 
of doing. 

When President McCurdy of the Mutual testified, his attitude 
was the same as Mr. McCall's — that he had done a great public 
service, worthy of commendation. He told how, during his 
twenty years as President, the dividends to the policy-holders 
had diminished and their money was taken for the '^ missionary 
and philanthropic purpose" of spreading the blessings of life 
insurance. He told of the furniture of his office, the real gold 
on the walls, the $12,000 rug on the floor, the furnishings, which 
cost more than $50,000, and justified the expenditure; it added 
to the dignity of life insurance. . . . 

Deposition, disgrace and disaster followed speedily upon 
confession and conviction. President Alexander of the Equi- 
table broke down in mind and body. Young Hyde went into 
voluntary exile. John A. McCall died. Missionary McCurdy^ 
shattered and crushed, seeks peace in alien lands. . . . 

The high financiers fought among themselves for the Hyde 
stock. Thomas F. Ryan, the strongest, grimmest wolf in the 
Wall Street pack, won. He reorganized the Equitable by mak- 
ing Paul Morton president and supplanting the Hyde dummies 
with Ryan dummies. . . . 

But even Thomas F. Ryan quailed before the power of public 
opinion. He had regarded his purchase of the Hyde stock as 
a private affair. The public did not so regard it. . . . Mr. 
Ryan's next yielding was to induce former President Grover 



224 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Cleveland, Morgan J. O'Brien, Presiding Justice of the Appel- 
late Division, and George Westinghouse to act as his proxies 
to name his dummy trustees. . . . 

The public conscience is sound. However private con- 
sciences may differ in their apologies for the weaknesses of 
their possessors, the collective conscience has no personal 
evasions, no excuses for wrong-doing. The force of moral 
ideas in the community is omnipotent. ¥/hat it has done to 
insurance corruption it can do wherever and whenever the 
public safety is menaced. 

The mention of Thomas F. Ryan takes us back again 
to the summer of 1905, whence may be traced the amaz- 
ing story of the successive transfers of ownership, as a 
private property, of this vast undertaking of public in- 
terest and wide participation. 

Mr. Hyde, as has been said, had literary and artistic 
tastes. He had figured in arrangements for an exchange 
of American and French college professors to promote 
international understanding. His dinner to Ambassador 
Cambon, however unfortunate the manner of payment 
of the cost, was a sincere expression of his personality 
and his tastes. He had no mind to war in Wall Street. 
His ambition was to seek his ease and congenial company 
in Paris. 

Early in June, 1905, he sold his five hundred and one 
shares to Thomas F. Ryan. Their par value was $50,100. 
They were limited to a seven-per-cent. dividend, and as in- 
vestment securities were worth at most $75,000. Ryan 
paid about $2,500,000. The excess represented the value 
of the control of the company. Edward H. Harriman, 
who had been a power with Hyde, expected to share the 
ownership with Ryan, but was, as he later explained 
under oath, cheated out of his share. His purpose to get 
even with Ryan — an ambition "not yet'^ accomplished, as 
he once testified — left him only with his life. Of the 
Ryan acquisition The World gaid: 



^'EQUITABLE CORRUPTIONS^ 225 

Thomas F. Ryan has bought James H. Hyde's stock in the 
Equitable Life Assurance Society. Mr. Ryan is one of the 
choice spirits in the Consolidated Gas Company and the 
Metropolitan Securities Company, two corporations notorious 
for their corrupt alliances -with, corrupt politicians. 

Mr. Ryan has elected Paul Morton chairman of the Equi- 
table board. Mr. Morton is a self-confessed violator of the 
Interstate Commerce law, and is the distinguished gentleman 
who used to manipulate the rebate business for the Atchison, 
Topeka and Sante Fe Railroad Company. . . . 

Mr. Ryan has invited Grover Cleveland, Judge M. J. O'Brien 
and George Westinghouse to act as trustees of the stock which 
he has purchased. Without discussing Mr. Ryan's motives in 
acquiring this Equitable stock, which can yield him only S3,500 
a year in legal dividends. The World can only say that the 
necessity for a legislative investigation into Equitable corrup- 
tion is more acute now than ever. — June 10th. 

Except the people of the State of New York, and the 600,000 
scattered policj^-holders, everybody concerned in Equitable 
affairs is satisfied with the present situation. 

The Dignified Dummj^ Directors, who did not know what 
was going on, have nearly all resigned. Several of the Pre- 
daceous Dummies have also quit. The other Predaceous 
Dummies and the Hereditary and Parasitic Dummies and the 
Satellite Directors remain. Instead of the Dignified Dummies 
who formerly furnished the respectability, Mr. Cleveland, 
Justice O'Brien and Mr. Westinghouse will provide a new set 
of directors fully equal in respectability to those who have 
resigned. — June 14th. 

Mr. Ryan did not long hold the stock. He in turn 
gave it up to a stronger hand. The stock he bought from 
Hyde, with a few other shares, was taken at cost, plus 
4 per cent, interest, the total then amounting to more than 
three million dollars, by J. Pierpont Morgan under an 
arrangement with George F. Baker and James Stilbnan, 
presidents of the First National and National City banks, 
to take half the stock off his hands if he wished to be re- 
lieved. The voting trustees as rearranged after Mr, 



226 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Cleveland's death were Judge O'Brien, Lewis Cass Led- 
yard and George W. Perkins. The directors are elected 
partly by the stockholders, partly by the trustees. They 
certify that no control over their action was exercised by 
Mr. Morgan. 

Before the Pujo committee in Washington in Decem- 
ber, 1912, Mr. Morgan explained that he bought the con- 
trolling stock, which could only yield him one-eighth or 
one-ninth per cent, upon the price paid, because he 
^'thought it a desirable thing for the situation.'' Further 
testimony gave the meaning of the phrase, and at least 
hinted at the reasons why Ryan sold: 

Q. That is very general, Mr. Morgan. Will you speak of the sit- 
uation? Was not that stock safe enough in Mr. Ryan's hands? A. I 
suppose it was. I thought it was greatly improved by being in the 
hands of myseK and these two gentlemen, provided I asked them to 
do so. 

Q. How would that improve the situation over the situation that 
existed when Mr. Ryan and Mr. Harriman held the stock? A. Mr. 
Ryan did not have it alone. 

Q. Yes, but do you not know that Mr. Ryan originally bought it 
alone, and Mr. Harriman insisted on having him give him half? A. I 
thought if he could pay for it that price, I could. I thought that was 
a fair price. . . . 

Q. The normal rate of interest that you can earn on money is about 
5 per cent., is it not? A. Not always, no. I am not talking about it 
as a question of money. . . . 

Q. Was anything the matter with it in the hands of Mr. Ryan? 
A. Nothing. 

Q. In what respect would it be better where it is than with him? 
A. That is the way it struck me. 

Q. Is that all you have to say about it? A. That is all I have to 
say about it. 

Q. You care to make no other explanation about it? A. No. 

Q. The assets of the Equitable Life were $504,465,802.01 on Dec. 
31, 1911. Did Mr. Ryan offer this stock to you? A. I asked him to 
sell it to me. 

Q. Did you tell him why you wanted it? A. No, I told him I 
thought it was a good thing for me to have. 

Q. Did he tell you that he wanted to sell it? A. No, but he sold it. 



'^EQUITABLE CORRUPTION^' 227 

Q. He did not want to sell it, but when you said you wanted it he 
sold it? A. He did not say that he did not want to sell it. 

Q. What did he say when you told him you would hke to have it 
and thought you ought to have it? A. He hesitated about it and 
finally sold it. 

By the death of Mr. Morgan the shares carrying con- 
trol of the Equitable passed to his son, the present J. P. 
Morgan. Their final disposition is curiously awaited, 
in the expectation that means will ultimately be found 
to mutualize the society. 

So closed the insurance war. The Equitable is not yet 
turned over to its rightful owners, the policy-holders. 
The anomaly of $50,100 worth of stock controlling asset 
trust funds now mounting above five hundred million 
dollars continues. But great has been the value of the 
house-cleaning. 

Not the least of the beneficent results was the move- 
ment in the state that, by putting Charles E. Hughes 
in the Governor's chair, established a higher ideal of 
executive responsibility and taught a greater confidence in 
the power of the people over their representatives. 



XVII 

CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 
1905-1909 

Rise of Mr. Hughes to Power in New York— Mr. Hearst's Candidacies for 
Mayor and Governor— George B. McClellan as Mayor— Governor Hughes's 
Bitter Conflicts with the Republican Bosses — His War upon Race-Track 
Gambling — Roosevelt Compels his Renomination — His Fruitless Fight for 
Direct Primaries— Why Hughes was Side-Tracked from Politics to the 
Supreme Court — Mayor Gaynor's Administration. 

Insurance reform made Charles Evans Hughes a 
logical candidate for high office. His friends could see 
his road lying straight before him through the Governor- 
ship of New York to the White House. He traveled that 
road some distance. How he was forced to step aside, 
taking up, indeed, a position of usefulness and honor, but 
abandoning his ambition for the Presidency, is the pohtical 
story of 1906 and the troubled years that followed it. 

Mr. Hughes was a constructive, progressive statesman. 
He made a record of unbroken success at the polls and of 
a gratifying measure of success in his executive policies. 
His brief political career was one of constant struggle with 
the bosses of both parties, with whom he did not always 
come off second best. Appeal direct to the people was the 
method of warfare which he might almost be said to have 
rediscovered. 

The first campaign Mr. Hughes made for elective 
office brought him into conflict with William Randolph 
Hearst. 

Mr. Hearst had become conspicuously a factor in 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 229 

politics by his fruitless effort to secure the Democratic 
nomination for the Presidency in 1904. In the following 
year he was a candidate in one of the hottest political con- 
tests ever waged in the United States. His campaign 
for Mayor of New York City upon the Municipal Owner- 
ship ticket presented much to remind one of the Henry 
George campaign of 1886, with William M. Ivins, the 
Republican candidate, playing the role of Theodore 
Roosevelt as third in an unequal contest, and with Mayor 
McClellan repeating the part of Mayor Hewitt. Mr. 
Hearst's doctrines and his emphasis again alarmed citizens 
who had taken anxious thought of Henry George's single- 
tax beliefs in the earlier campaign. Again, many Re- 
publicans went to the Mayor's support, and the Repub- 
lican machine was not unfavorable to McClellan's elec- 
tion. Again the devotion of a part of the attacking force 
had about it something almost of exaltation. To com- 
plete the parallel a dispute arose whether McClellan was 
fairly elected. 

The World in this three-cornered contest had no candi- 
date, although in the end it practically supported Ivins, 
who had no hope of success. McClellan it could not 
praise, his administration having until then exhibited 
its most unlovely phases. Hearst it opposed, though 
mindful of the aid he was giving to the habit of inde- 
pendent voting. It put forth its best effort in electing 
Mr. Jerome district attorney as an independent, against 
both the Republican and Democratic parties. Jerome 
had promised to pursue financial criminals concerned in 
the transit plunder of New York City, the Shipbuilding 
Trust, and other money scandals. His continuance in 
office was a disappointment; he did not pursue these 
criminals, nor those exposed in the insurance investiga- 
tion; but the remarkable example of independent voting 
given in his election remains a healthy reminder of what 
New York, when it wills, can do to political machines. 



230 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Mr. McClellan's plurality over Hearst, on the face of 
the returns, was 3,468 in a total of nearly 650,000. Charges 
of fraud were made, and a bill was introduced in Albany, 
which The World supported, to permit a recount. This 
was later secured, but did not materially alter the result. 
Mr. McClellan's second term, of four years, was an im- 
provement upon his first of two years. Much of the time 
he was in conflict with Boss Murphy. His appointments 
grew better toward the close of his service, but his ad- 
ministration will remain notable chiefly for its financial 
sins. Never before had the ruinous system of keeping 
tax rates down by charging current expenses to debt 
been carried to such extremes. Six years of this policy, 
with a financial panic toward its close, left the city in an 
embarrassing plight, facing its new problems of rapid- 
transit and dock development. 

Upon this Mayor of New York, so attractive yet so 
disappointing. The World's judgment at his leaving of 
office ran as follows: 

It cannot be said that Mr. McClellan has proved himself a 
great Mayor, but it can be said that he has made it easier for 
his successor to be a great Mayor. Let us give him credit for 
that. 

Whatever his reasons, Mr. McClellan broke with Murphy 
and emancipated his administration from boss servitude. That 
in itself was a long step in the direction of better government. 

The great reproach of Mr. McClellan's administration has 
been its unparalleled extravagance and its indifference to the 
transportation necessities of the people of New York. . . . No 
justification in sound administration can be found for the 
tremendous increase in the debt limit during the last six years, 
which has put the gross bonded debt of New York City above 
the national debt and left it seven times as great as that of any 
other American city. 

In 1904 Mr. Hearst had accepted a renomination for 
Congress from Boss Murphy. In 1905 he had assailed 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 231 

Murphy as the power behind McClellan. In 1906 he 
made terms with Murphy, and in one of the most tur- 
bulent conventions ever held in New York gained the 
Democratic nomination for Governor. The issue was 
made plain by the Republican convention in nominating 
Mr. Hughes — weighted down, however, by a weak ticket 
for minor offices. 

There was now no need of The World^s concentrating 
its effort on a side issue, as it had done the previous year. 
Mr. Hughes would furnish an excellent administration. 
Not much could be expected of the Independence League- 
Tammany alliance, which alienated thousands of rural 
Democrats, as well as many in the metropolis who had 
supported Hearst for Mayor. The World made telling 
use of previous Hearst cartoons picturing Boss Murphy 
in prison stripes, and of the Hearst newspapers' editorials 
of denunciation. Thus in its article of October 1st: 

When Mr. Hearst makes his speech at the Tammanj^ ratifi- 
cation meeting which Murphy is arranging for him, will he 
repeat his statement of August 22, **I repeat now that I am 
absolutely and unalterably opposed to the Murphys and the 
McCarrens, and also to the Sullivans and the McClellans and 
to the kind of politics that they all represent"? 

Will Mr. Hearst repeat his speech at Durland's, October 29, 
1905, in which he said, ^'Murphy is as evil a specimen of a 
criminal boss as we have had since the days of Tweed. Murphy 
grows rich and insolent on corrupt contracts"? 

Will Mr. Hearst repeat the editorial printed in his New York 
American, October 16, 1905, which said, '^ Murphy, the most 
hungry, selfish, and extortionate boss Tammany has ever 
known, is fighting for his Hfe and for his plunder"? 

Will Mr. Hearst repeat the editorial statement of his evening 
Journal, December 30, 1905, "Murphy should be in Sing Sing 
wearing stripes instead of at Delmonico's"? 

The contest was by no means a walk-over for Hughes. 
Toward the end of the campaign a vigorous blow was 



232 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

struck by President Roosevelt, who sent Secretary Elihu 
Root of his Cabinet to attack Mr. Hearst in a bitter 
speech at Utica. Thus aided by the power of the Presi- 
dent, who was then at the summit of his popularity, Mr. 
Hughes won by 57,879, but the remainder of the Hearst- 
Murphy ticket was elected. The Democratic state 
officials, however, worked in harmony with Governor 
Hughes. Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler as lieutenant gov- 
ernor and Martin Glynn as comptroller were specially 
efficient. 

The changes of the Independence League were not yet 
at an end. In 1907 there was no state election of impor- 
tance, but Mr. Hearst, deserting Murphy, arranged with 
Herbert Parsons, chairman of the New York Republican 
Committee, representing Odell and his state machine, to 
run fusion candidates for aldermen, for the assembly, and 
for county offices. The attempt at fusion failed in the 
main, and The World's comment states the lesson: 

This year, when an honest fusion might have greatly reduced 
the Tammany majorities, Mr. Hearst packed the ticket with 
hacks and hired men and gave Tammany a walk-over. Thanks 
to Mr. Hearst, Murphy's leadership is more securely established 
to-day than at any other time in his whole political career. 
Honor to whom honor is due. 

To win in New York, fusion must represent character, con- 
science and conviction. If it be merely an appetite for office 
it is foredoomed to disaster. 

Governor Hughes was fulfilling expectation that he 
would give the state a live administration. He had against 
him the machine of the party that elected him as well 
as the party that opposed him. He early asked for 
the Senate's concurrence in the removal of Otto Kelsey 
as superintendent of insurance. It was refused. The 
World, outraged that the reform of insurance methods 
which it had compelled should be hampered by the 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 233 

neglect of the department, filed charges against Kelsey; 
the Governor appointed Matthew C. Fleming to take 
testimony; and the inquiry revealed such ignorance of 
his duties upon Kelsey's part that it made the Senate a 
laughing-stock. Fleming's report was filed February 2, 
1908, and presently Kelsey resigned and was ^' taken care 
of" by an appointment in the comptroller's office. The 
Insurance Department was provided with an abler head 
in William H. Hotchkiss. 

The World had supported the Governor in the Kelsey 
matter. It supported him in forcing the recount bill, to 
silence the complaint that Mr. Hearst had been counted 
out for McClellan in 1905. It upheld the Governor in 
his demand for the public-utilities bill. This act pro- 
vided Public Service Commissions for city and country, 
put a check on stock-watering by public-service com- 
panies, and gave the people a representation and a con- 
trol. It is the model for the New Jersey public-service 
law and others that have since been passed. Though 
mutilated by the most regrettable court decision in the 
Third Avenue case, that its provisions do not apply to 
reorganizations, as was intended when it was enacted, it 
has proved of great value. 

A hotter contest in which Governor Hughes had the 
support of The World as well as that of Mr. Hearst's 
newspapers was his war upon gambling at race-tracks. 
The constitution of New York prohibits gambling. 
Under the Percy-Gray law pool-selling at race-tracks was 
permitted by legislative connivance in failing to provide 
penalties. To reconcile the rural conscience to this 
hypocrisy, part of the huge revenue from the betting- 
rings of metropolitan tracks was paid to agricultiu-al- 
society fairs. But the people did not approve of the 
arrangement, nor could it have been retained so long 
but for the influence of race-track lobbyists at Albany. 

The Legislature refused to provide penalties for acts 

16 



234 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

within race-track fences which were punished outside 
them. Governor Hughes went beyond the Legislature 
to the people and threatened a special session. Of this 
threat The World said on April 10, 1908: 

His message is a constitutional threat that if the Legislature 
does not fully and honestly consider Wall Street and race-track 
gambling, the regulation of telephone and telegraph companies, 
the rapid-transit law, the improvement of the highways, certain 
economies in administration, a direct-nominations law, banking 
legislation, immigration, the condition of the unemployed 
and reform in the procedure of the courts of criminal jurisdic- 
tion, he will call a special session and use his constitutional 
executive power to see that the Legislature exercises its con- 
stitutional legislative power. . . . 

With all its duties undone, the Legislature was calmly 
arranging to adjourn, that its members might be more free to 
play national and state politics. The fault lies specifically in 
the Senate. That is the reason the Governor's message cuts 
like a lash those Senators who are now writhing under it. 

The special session was called. To fill a Senate vacancy 
a by-election was held before the Legislature could re- 
assemble; upon the race-track issue Governor Hughes's 
supporter won against odds. The people were aroused, 
and legislators heard from their constituents. Two 
months later the bills were passed. In the following 
autumn many men who had opposed the Governor failed 
of renomination or re-election; and as they were generally 
of the hide-bound and sometimes corrupt ^^01d Guard," 
the state gained by the upheaval. 

These stirring scenes brought the state campaign of 
1908 to alert public attention. A Governor was to be 
elected, the Senate and the Assembly. The men who 
had been fighting Governor Hughes in the Legislature and 
getting worsted were forced to renominate him. They 
would have been willing to renominate Higgins two years 
before, but did not dare. They now longed to ^'turn 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 235 

Hughes down/' but were forbidden to do so by President 
Roosevelt, who knew how great a reputation Governor 
Hughes had acquired throughout the country, and how 
bad an effect would be produced upon the Republican 
campaign by denying him a renomination ; and the 
political graveyard was already full enough of men who 
had tried to stop the Governor in his course. Mr. Hearst 
named an Independent ticket, headed by his counsel, 
Clarence Shearn. The strength of Mr. Hughes The World 
discussed with its usual candor September 16th: 

There is bitter opposition to him within his own party. 
There is dissatisfaction in this city with the work of the Public 
Service Commission. There is intense hostility against the 
Governor among the elements that patronized the race-tracks. 
There is the indirect issue of personal liberty, many of whose 
defenders scent danger in certain of the Governor's puritanical 
tendencies. And, finally, WilHam Travers Jerome is still 
District Attorney of New York County. 

At the same time Mr. Hughes is fortunate beyond any other 
Republican nominated for Governor in a generation. He owes 
nothing to his party's organization. He owes nothing to the 
Republican partnership with Wall Street and high finance. 
He is a free man, under obligations to nobody but the people 
of the State of New York. 

The nominee of the Democrats was Lewis Stuyvesant 
Chanler, the Lieutenant-Governor who had beaten the 
Republican candidate two years before when Hearst was 
defeated; a popular young man, with an excellent record. 
As the campaign developed and Mr. Chanler proved weak 
in debate and chary of decided policies The World more 
strongly urged Hughes's cause. He was re-elected by a 
majority of 69,462 against the bitterest opposition any 
candidate in New York had faced in years. The Hearst 
party neither aided him nor could have defeated him, 
since Shearn received but 34,000 votes. But Hughes was 



236 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

greatly aided by the Presidential election, in which Taft, 
against Bryan, received 202,000 plurality in New York. 

Governor Hughes in his second term was even more 
hampered by the Republican machine. His Wall Street 
investigation brought out valuable facts, but failed to 
produce results in legislation. As, prior to 1898, the 
state punished gambling outside race -track inclosures 
while permitting it inside them, so it continued to penalize 
usury outside of Wall Street, but permitted it within that 
charmed area, and made no attempt to curb gambling 
transactions on 'Change. 

In both his terms Governor Hughes served New York 
City by removing unfit officials. Three borough presi- 
dents fell at his hands after careful hearings. In the case 
of President Ahearn of Manhattan, the Tammany 
aldermen showed their sense of justice by re-electing him 
to the office in which he had been found unfit, raising 
curious questions as to the de facto status of a member of 
the Board of Estimate who dejure was not a member, until 
the courts ousted him. After long consideration, however, 
Governor Hughes failed to remove District - Attorney 
Jerome upon charges preferred by minority stockholders 
of the Metropolitan street Railway Company that he 
had failed to move zealously against rich criminals. 

Governor Hughes, again with the support of The World, 
compelled the Legislature to include telegraph and 
telephone companies under the jurisdiction of the Public 
Service Commission. The new law has been followed 
by reductions in tolls and by better control over an 
important business affecting the public. The Governor 
was less successful in his last great fight with the political 
machines — his attempt to secure a direct-primary law. 

While Governor Hughes was still in the thick of the 
fray President Taft selected him as an associate justice 
of the United States Supreme Court. The appointment 
was made in May, 1910, though Justice Hughes did not 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 237 

take oath until October 10th. Mr. Taft's selection was 
widely approved, perhaps by no one more heartily than 
by the bosses of his own party in New York, whose folly 
and feebleness Mr. Hughes had exposed. This appoint- 
ment removed from political life an official to whom The 
World had tendered more active support than to any 
other since Grover Cleveland. In after-time men may 
be puzzled to know why one so strong in leadership as 
Governor Hughes, so secure in the confidence of the peo- 
ple, so progressive in his policies, should have been lost 
to political life. The reason is indicated in the following 
article, which appeared in The World two years after his 
retirement to the bench, when the panic-stricken New 
York leaders of Republicanism were facing defeat by the 
Bull Moose schism: 

Surveying the wreck of a once splendid political organization, 
what would the Republican bosses at Saratoga give for another 
Charles E. Hughes? . . . 

The Republican chickens have all come home to roost. 
After Mr. Hughes was elected Governor in 1906 Mr. Roosevelt 
discovered that he was not going to be subservient to the White 
House, and cunningly set to work to destroy the Governor 
politically. Mr. Roosevelt's visitors were told that '' Hughes 
is an ingrate," and Mr. Roosevelt used to boast that he would 
never permit the Republican National Convention to nominate 
Hughes for President. 

Mr. Barnes, who was a Roosevelt office-holder, and all his 
associate Republican bosses in New York ardently played the 
Roosevelt game. . . . Thanks to their efforts, Mr. Roosevelt 
had no difficulty in controlling the Republican National Con- 
vention in 1908 and in nominating Mr. Taft. Then he com- 
pelled these same bosses to renominate Mr. Hughes for Gover- 
nor, because he knew that the Hughes candidacy was essential 
to Republican success. But even then the bosses went their 
way blindly and stupidly. Throughout his second term they 
continued their fight against the Governor. The Republican 
machine worked with Tammany; Grady (Tammany spokes- 



238 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

man) was the leader of both parties on the floor of the Senate, 
and the Hughes administration fought, inch by inch, for every 
popular measure that it won. 

But in the summer of 1910 Mr. Roosevelt came back from 
Africa, ambitious to be the only third-term President. He 
needed a moral issue, and Governor Hughes had provided one. 
So Mr. Roosevelt seized it, turned upon the up-State bosses 
who had been his henchmen while he was in the White House, 
and launched himself as the champion of progressive policies. 

In the mean time Governor Hughes went to the Supreme 
bench; the Republican bosses were left without a shred of 
moral leadership, and to-day their party organization is an- 
nihilated, and they are facing political extermination. They 
helped Roosevelt destroy Hughes, and now Roosevelt is des- 
troying them. 

Had they stood by Governor Hughes after his election in 1906 
. . . it is very likely that Charles E. Hughes would be President 
of the United States. They could have made him President 
in spite of the Roosevelt machine. If Mr. Hughes had been 
nominated for President instead of Mr. Taft, there would 
be no Roosevelt third-term candidacy, no Progressive party, 
no wreck of the Republican organization, no certainty of 
Republican defeat. 

The campaign of 1909 was to New York City as im- 
portant as that of Presidential year. A Mayor and 
Board of Estimate were to be elected for four years. 
The World had long urged as a candidate for Governor 
or Mayor William J. Gaynor, whose prowess against 
McKane, of Gravesend, has been described. Justice 
Gaynor was one of the strongest men of the city. Upon 
the Supreme Court bench he had refused to be lost to 
sight. His energy, his interest in public affairs, and the 
piquancy of phrasing that made his public utterances 
readable kept him prominent. 

The Republican machine after futile negotiations for 
fusion nominated Otto Bannard as a ^^ straight" candi- 
date. The Civic Alliance that had succeeded to the 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 239 

Independence League repented of its former friendship 
for Gaynor, and nominated Mr. Hearst himself. Fusion 
was fortunately accomplished in nominations for some 
other oJSices. 

Boss Murphy, once more showing the boldness that had 
impelled him to draft Grout and Fornes from the Fusion 
ticket of 1903, caused the indorsement of Justice Gaynor 
by the Democratic City Convention. He had already been 
nominated by petition. The World in supporting Judge 
Gaynor had no fear of his proving putty in Murphy's 
hands. Gaynor was, in fact, selected for Mayor by pub- 
lic opinion. 

Mr. Hearst's vote was weaker than in 1905. He was 
third in the race; Gaynor led Bannard by 73,074 votes. 
In minor offices fusion fared well. Said The World the 
day after election: 

Tammany was beaten by Democrats and lost the city gov- 
ernment to Democrats. 

John P. Mitchel, elected President of the Board of Aldermen, 
is a Democrat. George McAneny, elected President of the 
Borough of Manhattan, is a Democrat. Alfred E. Steers, 
elected President of the Borough of Brooklyn, is a Democrat: 
Lawrence J. Gresser, elected President of the Borough of 
Queens, is a Democrat. Cyrus G, Miller, elected President of 
the Borough of the Bronx, is a Democrat. 

These were some of the men upon whom the Hearst 
party had fused with Republicans. Although Gresser 
was later forced out of office, the fusion city and borough 
government thus provided for was much better than 
its Tammany predecessors. It was no small thing for 
New York to have as Borough President of Manhattan 
Mr. McAneny instead of the incompetent Ahearn; and 
Mr. Miller in the Bronx to replace the impossible Haffen. 
With a Republican Comptroller, with so excellent a 
Republican District Attorney of New -York County as 



240 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Charles S. Whitman and a fusion Board of Aldermen, 
New York for the fom* years beginning with January 1, 
1910, was anything but a Tammany preserve. 

In its first few months Mayor Gaynor's administration 
so far surpassed all predecessors as to seem almost magic. 
The tax rate was bravely put up to stop borrowing money 
for current expenses, and an appropriation of ten million 
dollars was made to clear off bad assets upon which the 
city had been borrowing. Sluggish Commissioners were 
forced out of office. Excellent appointments were the 
rule. Economy intruded where it had long been a 
stranger. Waste was cut off in the Board of City Record, 
in aqueduct appraisals, in many departments. Borough 
appointments were generally excellent. When after less 
than seven months of new life for the city the Mayor was 
stricken down by the bullet of a would-be assassin the 
country was appalled at the threatened loss of one of its 
great figures. 

If in succeeding years Mayor Gaynor's administration 
lost strength and popularity the causes are easy to esti- 
mate. First among them all, the conduct of the Police 
Department, always a Mayor's toughest problem, was 
cast into discredit by the murder of Herman Rosenthal, 
a gambler who had promised to reveal secrets of the 
complicity of the police ^^ system" with protected vice and 
law-breaking. 

Rosenthal had complained to the Mayor that Lieuten- 
ant Charles Becker, who commanded a squad of '' strong- 
arm" police, had been his partner in the illicit venture 
of conducting a gambling-house, but was now persecut- 
ing him. For that reason he was willing to become an 
informer. Rosenthal got little sympathy from the Mayor, 
and took his story to The World, which prepared it for 
publication. Rosenthal was also about to go before the 
Grand Jury, and this became known by his old associates. 
Early in the morning of July 16, 1912, he was called out 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 241 

of the Hotel Metropole, Forty-third Street near Broad- 
way, and shot dead within sight of a number of people by 
men who fled in a gray automobile. 

Circinnstances pointed to a prearranged escape. Police- 
men in the vicinity got the number of the gray automo- 
bile wrong. A civilian who took down the correct num- 
ber and reported it at the station-house was locked up, 
to his amazement. By good fortune the news promptly 
reached District-Attorney Charles S. Whitman, who went 
to the station-house in the early morning hours, released 
and questioned the imprisoned witness, and set the de- 
tectives of his own office upon the trail. 

The World at once published RosenthaFs long story of 
his underworld experience of police protection and per- 
secution. His death set the seal of truth upon every 
sordid detail of the recital. The murder explained the 
story; the story explained the murder. This publica- 
tion, coupled with Mr. Whitman's prompt action, pre- 
vented the crime from dropping into the class of ''mys- 
terious" killings in New York due to gang and gambler 
warfare, for which often no culprit is found guilty. The 
city was aroused. The crime would not blow over. 
Soon, through the tracing of the gray automobile and its 
chauffeur, four ''gunmen" who did the shooting became 
known, and with them evidence to connect Lieutenant 
Becker with the crime. Out of the slime of the under- 
world witnesses were haled who knew and who, to save 
their own lives or liberty as accomplices, were compelled 
to tell how Becker had ordered the gunmen to kill Rosen- 
thal, had assured them of immunity from punishment, 
had arranged that "getaway money" be paid them by a 
wealthy gambler. 

Instead of offering the district attorney assistance, the 
Mayor made, and afterward adhered to, the grave error 
of treating him as the enemy of the police force and the 
city administration. He bade Police Commissioner 



242 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Waldo retain Lieutenant Becker on the force until his 
arrest. He criticized Becker only for having sat at table 
with "sb scoundrel like Rosenthal." Even after Becker's 
conviction Mr. Gaynor spoke of this man, who had held 
the power of life and death and had boasted of his ability 
to give immunity to murderers, as '^only a little lieuten- 
ant.'^ It almost seemed as if the police authorities were 
willing to see the accused men and the witnesses balk 
justice. But the district attorney gradually rounded 
them up, some in the city, one witness from as far away 
as Hot Springs, Arkansas, and brought the whole crew 
into a court of justice. 

Becker was tried first, and on October 24th, less than 
three months after his arrest, he was convicted. The 
four gunmen — ^young degenerates of an ordinary type, 
members of a criminal gang — were convicted on Novem- 
ber 19th. The World sought to read '^New York's Great 
Lesson" in these famous trials and to enforce the need of 
vigilance: 

The murder of Rosenthal brought the hideous meaning of 
the System home to every man and woman in New York, but 
the sequel has demonstrated the capacity of this crime-ridden 
community to re-establish a government of law. New York 
is no longer at the mercy of its criminals, whether in or out of 
the PoUce Department. 

This city found in Charles S. Whitman a District Attorney 
who measured up to every responsibility of his office. It found 
in John W. Goff a just and upright Judge who never hesitated 
to do his duty as he saw it. It found in the jury that convicted 
Becker and in the jury that convicted the four young crooks 
who did the actual killing twenty-four citizens who have helped 
restore pubHc respect for the administration of justice. 

Even though the Mayor missed the great opportunity of 
leadership that he owed to the community, even though the 
Police Commissioner deluded himself iirto believing that the 
System was a myth, organized government has again vindicated 
itself. 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 243 

For the time being the alliance between the police and the 
criminals is broken, and by vigorous administration it will stay 
broken. ... A body of intelligent pubhc opinion has been created 
that will make it easier to reorganize the Police Department, 
purge it of its debauched elements and re-establish the ascend- 
ancy of its majority of honest men. 

Besides vigilance there was needed, for permanent re- 
form, the abandonment of hypocrisy: 

A death-sentence of Becker, a death-sentence of the four 
gunmen, a death-sentence of gang rule, a death-sentence of 
the System. And then what? 

For a little while a purified city; and then a new Becker, 
new gunmen, a new gang rule, a new System, a resurrection of 
all the evils which we think we are burying, unless there is 
also passed a death-sentence on the conditions which directly 
created these evils. . . . 

So long as an Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy persists in making 
felonious everything that it considers shocking, so long as it 
brands as crimes those practices which other broader-minded 
and equally civihzed nations handle as public nuisances, so long 
as an Albany Legislature takes it upon itself to decree a rigid, 
standardized, criminally enforceable code of manners and of 
morals for a city nearly half of whose inhabitants come from 
a score of foreign lands each with its own customs and stand- 
ards, so long as such a Legislature strives to create fiat chastity, 
fiat sobriety and fiat frugality in conformity with its own pro- 
fessed ideals, and binds our local authorities by oath to treat 
any divergence from these ideals as crimes, just so long will 
human nature, following the dictates of its foibles, e^^ade such 
laws by subterfuge and by corruption. And as soon as cor- 
ruption is employed to evade laws which the enforcers of 
those laws themselves consider unreasonable, just so soon shall 
we again have a debauched police force, a System, a Becker, 
gangs, gunmen, a city shamed before the world. 

With the mass of evidence bearing upon bribery of the 
police brought out in these trials District-Attorney Whit- 



244 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

man went swiftly ahead to prosecute extortioners high 
upon the force who had grown wealthy by selling privi- 
leges to break the law, but against whom evidence had 
been lacking. Policemen of lower rank were convicted 
of bribery, and following their trials Inspectors Sweeney, 
Hussey, Murtha, and Thompson were brought into court 
upon the minor charge of conspiring to silence a witness 
against them, one Sipp, the proprietor of questionable 
resorts and a state's witness, by causing a vile charge to 
be made against him upon which he was arrested. Sipp 
was rescued by the district attorney. The evidence was 
untangled and the inspectors convicted in a group, with 
the graver charges of bribery and extortion still hanging 
over them. 

These bombshells bursting in the police force had not 
caused general agreement with Mayor Gaynor, who con- 
tinued constant in praise of the Police Department; who 
said that there were not more than fifty dishonest men 
wearing the blue, even after several of them were wearing 
prison stripes; and who voiced the police grievances 
against the district attorney. Naturally also The World, 
which had begun the clean-up process with the Rosenthal 
revelation, continued it in caustic editorials criticizing 
the Mayor and urging and commending the activity of 
Mr. Whitman. 

Another matter in which The World opposed Mayor 
Gaynor was the settlement of the subway problem. The 
Mayor and other members of the Board of Estimate had 
been elected upon an understanding that they favored 
the municipal construction of further rapid-transit lines, 
without leasing them to the existing Brooklyn and Man- 
hattan monopolies. 

The McClellan administration had used the city's 
credit even beyond the legal debt limit, so that the new 
administration had to begin by canceling some $20,- 
000,000 of commitments against which bonds were not 



CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 245 

yet issued. The debt limit had been increased by exempt- 
ing bonds issued for self-supporting pm'poses, like docks 
and subways, and by higher assessments which auto- 
matically raised the borroT\dng power. Thus provided 
with funds, it seemed to The World that the city did not 
need to go again into partnership with the monopolies 
which had shown such scant consideration for passengers 
and, in their stock- jobbing manipulations of transit rights 
in the public streets, such slight regard for honesty. The 
Mayor joined what became the dominant element in the 
Board of Estimate, and after long negotiation the com- 
plicated ''dual system'' agreement with the Interborough 
Company and the Brookl^m Rapid Transit Company was 
struck. This strange bargain was a disappointment to 
a great many of the people, as it was to The World. Under 
it the city's credit was the vivifying force in hundreds of 
milhons of fresh investments, the Interborough's profits, 
unduly swollen by overcrowding upon its inadequate 
lines, were guaranteed by spreading them over old and 
new capital alike, the watering of stocks in the elevated 
railroads was condoned by the acceptance of their capital 
as entitled to profits; and the cit^^'s retm'n upon its own 
portion of the investment was, in the opinion of many, 
made uncertain except in conditions of renewed over- 
crowding, such as the people wished to end. Yet, how- 
ever owned, the new subways will be a potent force in 
building a vaster New York than was dreamed of thirty 
years ago. 

As iMayor Gaynor's administration is not complete the 
time has not come for any journal to pass judgment upon 
it. In 1911, before the final disposition of the rapid- 
transit bargain, and before the Rosenthal murder, The 
World said of it and of the IMayor: 

We think that IMr. GajTior has been a very good Mayor. 
Up to the time he was shot last summer, we think he was prob- 



246 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

ably the best Mayor New York had had within the memory of 
any man then Hving We still think he is a better Mayor than 
Mr. McClellan or Mr. Low or Mr. Van Wyck, and that the 
municipal service is in better condition than at any other time 
since consolidation. . . . 

If anybody chooses to say that Mr. Gaynor is irascible and 
irritable in his discussions of public affairs, we shall agree with 
him; but we are aware of no provision in the Constitution of 
the State or the charter of the city which asserts that the 
Mayor of New York must be sweet-tempered and gentle and 
lovable. Mr. Gaynor is rather difficult to get along with at 
times and we are glad that we have no personal relations with 
him; but these infirmities of disposition do not greatly concern 
the public welfare. Most of the people that the Mayor scolds 
are office-holders and they are competent to take care of their 
own troubles. 

Many citizens are undoubtedly disappointed because the 
Mayor has not done better, because he has not accomplished 
more. This is an honest disappointment. The World would 
be very reluctant to accept the Gaynor administration as the 
highest possible achievement in the way of city government; 
but it spells progress, and we fervently hope that New York 
may never have a worse Mayor than William J. Gaynor. 



XVIII 



1906-1908 

Mr. Bryants Return from a Trip Around the World — He Conquers ^'The 
Enemy's Country '^ — Practically Nominated Two Years in Advance — 
^'The World's" Strong Protest — Mr. Taft's Selection Becomes Certain — 
A Big-Stick Convention — The Nation's Need of An Opposition — Untimely 
Death of Gov. John A. Johnson of Minnesota — Taft Elected by His 
Opponent's Weakness — The Hard-Times Issue Goes for Naught. i 

Returning from a trip around the world, during which 
he had been received with honors in many lands and had 
made notable addresses, William Jennings Br3^an reached 
New York Wednesday, August 29, 1906, He was 
greeted by Democrats from every section and hailed as 
their next candidate for the Presidency. 

The World did not wait to hear Mr. Bryan's speech to an 
immense audience in Madison Square Garden the following 
night before warning Democrats of the folly of ^ Hying 
their own hands and closing the door of opportunity 
against themselves two years in advance of the cam- 
paign.'' It told Mr. Bryan that the well-heralded appeal 
he was about to make for government ownership of the 
railroads was ^'sl scheme of state socialism absolutely 
revolutionary. ' ' It described the premature Presidential 
demonstration as the ^^most impolitic, foolish abdication 
of power on the part of a great political organization ever 
recorded" in the United States. 

Mr. Bryan's speech was rapturously applauded in what 
was once "the enemy's country," and government owner- 



248 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

ship was temporarily added to the patchwork which 
Democratic poHcy had become under his leadership. 
Less than a year later the pattern was again changed 
when, on July 20, 1907, Mr. Bryan in a formal statement 
said: 

Government ownership is not an immediate issue. A large majority 
of the people still hope for effective regulation. While they so hope 
they will not consider government ownership. While many Demo- 
crats believe, and Mr. Bryan is one of them, that public ownership 
of railroads is the ultimate solution of the problem, still those who 
believe that the pubhc wiU finally in self-defense be driven to owner- 
ship recognize that regulation must be tried under the most favorable 
circumstances before the masses will be ready to try a more radical 
remedy. Regulation cannot be sufficiently tried within the next 
year. There is no desire anywhere to make government ownership 
an issue in 1908. 

It was no new thing for Mr. Bryan to modify or defer 
his policies in response to party sentiment. In 1896 he 
had subordinated his tariff opinions to press the silver 
cause. In 1900, while not consenting to disavow free 
silver, he had recognized that it was not an ^'immediate 
issue '^ by making anti-imperialism paramount. Between 
his home-coming address and the statement of July, 1907, 
he had espoused in his Jefferson Day speech in Brooklyn 
a new issue, the initiative and referendum. Thus was 
illustrated the peril, against which The World had warned 
the party, of selecting a candidate two years in advance. 
'^What new PopuHstic or Socialistic issue he will have 
by 1908 for the Democratic party to subscribe to," was 
its comment upon the July statement, ^4s beyond the 
ken of human foresight. '^ And it repeated a query of the 
preceding year: ^^If the American people considered Mr. 
Bryan unsafe in 1896 and in 1900, wherein is he safer 
now? In what respect is he a cooler counselor or a wiser 
leader than he was then?" 

After the disastrous elections of 1907 Mr. Bryan's 



^^THE MAP OF BRYANISM'^ 249 

previous boast that ^'the prospects of the Democratic 
party are very bright and are constantly growing brighter ^^ 
was recalled by The World in the rejoinder that became 
famous as '^The Map of Bryanism/' This pictorial rep- 
resentation of the harm ''16 to 1'^ had done the party 
and the country was devised by Mr. Pulitzer himself, a 
blind man, to convince those who, having eyes, saw not. 
The map, which first appeared November 11, 1907, showed 
the entire country north of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Ten- 
nessee, Virginia, and Maryland solidly Republican. For 
months the map was repeated in every form the ingenuity 
of the cartoonist could devise; as the Denver convention 
drew near it was usually drawn upon the side of a Con- 
estoga wagon, or ''prairie-schooner," headed for "Pike's 
Peak or Bust." Eventually the "Map of Bryanism," 
by which The World protested against the courting of 
defeat in advance, was made the text of a vigorous 
pamphlet which was widely circulated. The power of 
this appeal to Democracy to seek the way of success and 
usefulness may be indicated by a citation. The date is 
February, 1908. The appeal is to Mr. Bryan himself: 

Your leadership of the Democratic party, Mr. Bryan, began 
with the National Convention held in Chicago in 1896. It was 
an unfortunate year for a national campaign. 

The American people were paying the penalty of thirty years 
of trifling with their currency and their monetary standard 
of value. Industry was half paralyzed, commerce semi- 
prostrate. Crops had been poor, the price of farm products 
was low; the farms themselves were generally mortgaged. 
The National Government itself, with a demoralized treasury, 
was borrowing money to pay its current expenses under the 
form of maintaining the gold reserve. Bond sales to favored 
syndicates had aroused the indignation of the people, without 
regard to party. Probably a million men in the cities were 
out of work. Soup-houses had been opened during the two 
preceding winters, and in every large center of population police- 
stations had been filled nightly by homeless wanderers. 



250 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Armies of tramps moved sullenly along the highways. A 
Democratic Administration was in power, which seemingly had 
no friends except its own appointees and beneficiaries. Dis- 
content was almost universal. It was the hour of the agitator, 
and the Democratic National Convention was his opportunity. 

There were orators, there were demagogues, there were self- 
seekers; there were in plenty Jack Cades, with seven half- 
penny loaves on sale for a penny; but something more was 
needed, and that was a man who gave evidence of zeal, who 
had not been conspicuously identified with ancient party feuds, 
and who, by his demeanor, might inspire the despairing, satisfy 
the frantic, excite the luke-warm and appeal to the imagina- 
tion of the doubtful voter. 

That man appeared in the person of you, William Jennings 
Bryan, then thirty-six years old, at that moment editor of an 
Omaha newspaper by grace of the silver-miners, and affec- 
tionately known in the West as ^'the Boy Orator of the Platte." 

The ^^Map of Bryanism'' from this point traced Mr. 
Bryan's career through the reverse of 1896, the four fol- 
lowing years of experiment, the more decided disaster of 
1900, the fresh coquettings with strange doctrine — ^in short, 
the twelve years of division and defeat. The World argued 
that there were men who could make appeal to the new 
spirit in the Democracy — the spirit that four years later 
was to bear it past all obstacles to a notable victory. 
Foremost among them at this time was John A. Johnson, 
Governor of Minnesota, who had been elected in 1904 
by a plurality of 6,352 on the same day that his state 
gave Roosevelt 161,464 plurality. Governor Johnson 
had been re-elected by 76,633 plurality in 1906. One of 
the strongest, simplest figures in American political life, 
he was the candidate of his state for the Democratic 
nomination for the Presidency; his death in September, 
1909, was a loss to Minnesota and the Union. Judge 
Gray, of Delaware, known throughout the country for 
his able and patriotic action as chairman of the commis- 
sion that settled the coal strike, was another man, strong 



'^THE MAP OF BRYANISM^' 251 

with the people and in his Democracy unquestioned, with 
whom the party might have retrieved disaster. 

That The World in later supporting j\Ir. Bryan, after 
exhausting all arguments against his candidacy, was 
under no illusions as to his chance of election was shown 
in its article of April 24, 1908: 

William H. Taft '^dll be nominated for President by the 
Republican National Convention. 

If William J. Bryan is to be the Democratic candidate, 
Judge Taft's election is certain. There need be no anxiety 
as to the outcome of another Bryan campaign; no increased 
industrial suspense, no further shutting down of factories, no 
new recruits to the army of unemployed. 

Not that The World shut its eyes to the graver dangers 
which lay behind immediate confidence in "Taft and 
Prosperity." It found no cause for congratulating the 
public in the convention which in June nominated Mr. 
Taft. That ratification meeting swayed at will by an 
imperious Executive it described as ''A Big Stick Con- 
vention. '^ 

It was the Big Stick that prodded the Federal employees, 
in defiance of civil-service-reform law or principle, into frantic 
activity for Taft; that marshaled the delegates; that clubbed 
contestants out of court. The Big Stick wrote the kejTiote 
speech, selected the committees of the Convention, called it to 
order, directed its nominal deliberations. Familiar Big-Stick 
phrases and ideas fill the platform that was given out in Chicago 
before the Convention had even assembled — and the Big Stick 
brands this same platform, full of praise of the Big Stick's 
past performances and promises for the future, as a ''mere 
tentative draft." The Big Stick scrawls on the Convention 
door the names of approved Vice-Presidential candidates, to 
the impotent anger of Republican managers, and nails down 
the anti-injunction plank while conservative leaders shriek 
themselves hoarse in vain protest. The Big Stick, waved over 



252 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

apprehensive monopolies, will provide the campaign funds; it 
will admonish the spellbinders, lead the bands, conduct the 
campaign for both parties and wear the credit of the result. 

The Republican platform, while declaring for tariff 
revision, contained for the first time the doctrine that 
protection should maintain ^^such duties as will equal the 
difference between the cost of production at home and 
abroad, together with a reasonable profit to American 
industries'^ It made no reference to a federal income and 
inheritance tax, which President Roosevelt had recom- 
mended to Congress. Mr. Taft^s speech of acceptance 
was quite as disappointing. While The World admitted 
that it would ^^ strengthen him with the very large busi- 
ness interests of the country," it found objection to his 
^'fulsome eulogy of Roosevelt, his obvious evasion on the 
income tax, his hedging on the Philippines, his dishearten- 
ing apology for unprecedented Republican extravagance," 
and added: 

His speech leaves the one great problem of the campaign 
still unsolved. In the minds of intelligent, thoughtful voters 
everywhere lies this grave question of the Republican candi- 
date's personal and political dependence upon Roosevelt. 

Will Taft be a President or a Proxy? 

The Democratic National Convention in July was also a 
mere indorsing body. Mr. Bryants nomination was in- 
evitable. The platform was much better than those of 
1896 and 1900. It made no mention of free silver. It 
contained no attack on the courts. Its tariff plank was 
''far more moderate and restrained than was the 1892 
platform upon which Mr. Cleveland was elected, in which 
a protective tariff was denounced as unconstitutional." 
It upheld the civil-service law. It favored the inconie tax. 
Its declaration in favor of campaign-fund publicity and 
a corrupt-practices act gratified the enemies of political 
fraud. In comment The World said on August 1st : 



^'THE MAP OF BRYANISM'' 253 

Mr. Bryan will be wise indeed if he carries out his announced 
purpose of ''standing squarely on the platform," and on the 
platform alone, subordinating everjrthing else to the issues of 
the campaign as officially defined by the Chicago and Denver 
Conventions. 

Mr. Bryan will be wiser still if he sticks to half a dozen vitally 
Democratic planks in preference to the Denver platform as a 
whole : 

1. Jingoism, with its bigger armies, bigger navies, crazy war- 
scares and reckless expenditures — an issue on which the 
Democratic party is sane and sound, as proved by the over- 
whelming refusal of the Denver Convention to tolerate the 
insensate war-shrieks of Hobson. 

2. Philippinism. 

3. Publicity of campaign funds. 

4. Roosevelt extravagance. 

5. Tariff reform. 

6. Centrahzation. 

These issues represent fundamental Democratic principles. 

Upon the following day The World gave at greater length 
its reasons for a hearty support of a candidate whose 
nomination it had fought and still regretted. This 
reason was the need of Opposition. However objection- 
able the action of the Democratic Convention might have 
been, greater dangers lay in unrestricted power in Wash- 
ington, with a Proxy President and a Big Stick still bran- 
dished over the country: 

We opposed Mr. Bryan's nomination on the ground of princi- 
ple and expediency. In advocating the nomination of Gov. 
Johnson or Judge Gray The World's aim was the rehabilitation 
and revitalization of the Democratic party. 

Even as a minority party the Democracy has an important 
duty to perform. There are grave wrongs to redress. There 
are shocking abuses of power to correct. There is waste and 
extravagance in the National Government, so scandalous that 
it finds no parallel in modern government. No adequate 



254 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

punishment has yet been dealt out to the eminent pirates of 
American finance who have reduced law-breaking to a fine art. 
There is jingoism, militarism, imperialism, rough-riderism, 
government by denunciation, Executive contempt for Congress 
and the courts — Rooseveltism in all its worst manifestations, 
unchecked and unrestrained. 

Mr. Bryan, the article continued, was "fortunate in the 
strength of the issues which the Republicans have pre- 
sented to him." First among these was the refusal of 
the Republican convention to "adopt a plank demanding 
an efficient corrupt-practices act and publicity of cam- 
paign expenditures.'' Mr. Taft had advocated the 
latter of these measures, yet the Convention that nomi- 
nated him voted down a plank upon the subject by 880 
to 94! Besides this great cause there was the issue of 
" administrative economy " : 

Never before was there such a debauch of extravagance in 
modern government as that which the Roosevelt Administration 
is responsible for. In place of the sensational Billion-Dollar 
Congress, which Speaker Reed was compelled to defend, we 
have the Two-Billion-Dollar Congress, spending a thousand 
millions of public money at each annual session. . . . 

But the first practical issue that must be faced and squarely 
met, is that of dislocated business and industry. The people 
of the United States need peace, they need prosperity, they need 
employment, they need bread. No campaign can be successful 
which does not take this great factor into consideration. In 
place of an indiscriminate crusade against all business and a 
continuation of the Roosevelt reign of terror must come a 
realization that guilt is always personal, and that the only 
effective way to deal with corporation crimes is to send the one 
responsible man to jail. 

Throughout the campaign The World had often to re- 
peat its question whether in the election of Mr. Taft the 
country was getting "a President or a Proxy": 



''THE MAP OF BRYANISM" 255 

There is need of real statesmanship at Washington. We are 
spending a thousand miUions a year. We are playing a strong 
hand in the war game. We are involved ten thousand miles 
away in colonial adventure. We have privilege and prostra- 
tion. We have plutocracy and depression. We are giving 
the world a fairly successful imitation of imperialism. 

But empires that endure have statesmen, economists and 
financiers who look after resources, and who note with care 
the state of the country and the welfare of the people. Im- 
perialism must not rest wholly upon extravagance or upon 
epaulets and ribbons. Money must be had. It must be 
drawn from the people by taxation. If the people are to pay 
the taxes they must be prosperous, and if discontent is not to 
appear, the imports must be just and reasonable, and not too 
severe a burden upon enterprise and industry. Expenditure 
must be wise. 

Much of our thousand millions of outgo is waste and worse. 
A spendthrift government makes a spendthrift people. A 
large percentage of <pur taxation is laid discriminatingly, for 
the benefit of favored interests. A government that shows 
partiality is in no position to establish comprehensive justice. 
A nation that wastes is sure to come to want. *A government 
that can do no more than denounce injustice is certain to be a 
failure. 

Since Mr. Taft has refused to discuss the important questions 
bearing upon business and industrial revival, the re-emploj^ment 
of the idle, the fairer distribution of public burdens and the 
reduction of the cost of living, it is gratifying to note the fact 
that Mr. Bryan promises to devote his first speech of the cam- 
paign to these problems. The subject has been too long neg- 
lected by our public men. . . . 

If Mr. Taft aims to be President he should have some ideas 
on these highly important questions, even if they do involve 
criticism of Mr. Roosevelt, and he should express them fearlessly. 
If he is content to be a Proxy he will continue as he has begun, 
with eyes turned toward Oyster Bay, and in a posture of adoration. 

''The first speech of the campaign'^ by Mr. Bryan when 
it came was something of a disappointment: 



256 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Legitimate and proper as this arraignment of Republicanism 
must be considered, it loses much force by reason of its studied 
avoidance of the equally glaring errors of Rooseveltism. In 
some respects it resembles a Roosevelt message to Congress. 
It leaves the impression that Mr. Roosevelt has been in the 
right at all times; that his policies have been wise and just; 
that his methods have been correct, and that his failures have 
resulted through no fault of his own. That is not the case. 
There can be no true estimate of the wrongs, follies and disasters 
that are to be forever associated with this administration 
which does not take into the fullest account the personal 
responsibility of the President. 

Probably the favor thus shown to Mr. Roosevelt accounts 
for the astonishing fact that in all of Mr. Bryan's 5,000 and 
more words, the word ^'extravagance/' the word '^ retrench- 
ment," and the phrase ''waste of public money" do not appear. 
Such an oversight would be considered extraordinary and 
unprecedented in a leader of any Opposition, and it is emphatic- 
ally so in the leader of a Democratic Opposition to crazy 
Republican profligacy at Washington. What would Tilden 
have said under such provocation? What oratorical thunder- 
bolts would Gladstone, in opposition, have hurled at a ministry 
having such a record? 

Mr. Bryan's speech of acceptance was a notable state 
paper. He advanced three reasons for the failure of 
reform measures under the Republican administration 
even when advocated by the Republican President: 

(1) The Republican party as an organization has drawn 
its campaign funds from the beneficiaries of privilege; 
it has sold legislation and immunity to favored interests^ 
and it has naturally refused to provide for publicity in 
the matter of campaign contributions and expenditures. 

(2) The Republican Senate of the United States, the very 
citadel of privilege and plunder, has stubbornly refused to 
pass the resolution for an amendment to the Constitution 
permitting the election of Senators by the people. (3) The 
Republican party, through the despotism of the Speaker 



''THE MAP OF BRYANISM" 257 

and the rules governing the House of Representatives, 
has made that body a creature of the interests rather than 
a servant of the people. 

As to such of his personal ideas as were not contained 
in the party declaration of principles Mr. Bryan said 
''a platform is binding as to what it omits as well as to 
what it contains. ... A platform announces the party's 
position on the questions which are at issue, and an 
official is not at liberty to use the authority vested in him 
to urge personal views which have not been submitted 
to the voters for their approval." These sentences were 
tombstones over the graves of free silver, of government 
ownership of railroads, of the initiative and the referendum, 
and of hostility to the courts. This guarded utterance 
encouraged The World to hope that Opposition might be 
aggressive, unsensational, and not without a generous 
support at the polls: 

Although Mr. Roosevelt in his stump speeches for two years 
vehemently insisted upon the restriction of ''swollen fortunes" 
by means of income and inheritance taxes, not one word appears 
in Mr. Roosevelt's Chicago platform in favor of these just and 
equitable measures. 

In spite of all his frenzied denunciation of malefactors of 
great wealth, all "the malefactors of great wealth" are praising 
the platform and pledging their support on the ticket. 

To make assurance doubly sure that the work of his conven- 
tion would command the approval of Wall Street and the 
predatory elements in general, Mr. Roosevelt made James S. 
Sherman the party candidate for Vice-President. Mr. Sherman 
represents the very tendencies in politics that Mr. Roosevelt 
pretends to oppose so violently. Yet Mr. Roosevelt elevates 
this astute representative of Wall Street politics to the dignity 
of a Man of My Type. . . . 

The World will treat Mr. Bryan with scrupulous fairness 
and justice. It will endeavor to treat him more than gener- 
ously because it so vigorously argued against his nomination. 
Our conviction is stronger than ever that Governor Johnson or 



258 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Judge Gray could have polled tens of thousands of votes which 
Mr. Bryan cannot get. But if Mr. Bryan should adhere to 
his admirable speech of acceptance and the gratifying pledges 
to bury the past, and should prove during the campaign that 
he has profited by defeat and unlearned his past follies in the 
school of experience; if he should resolutely keep his back 
turned upon the delusive issues which he has hitherto advocated; 
if he should refrain from attacks upon the courts; if he should 
avoid all appeals to class prejudice; if he should prove that he 
is not the old Bryan, courageously leading the popular protest 
against the excesses of Rooseveltism, he can then appeal with 
fair prospects of success to the great independent vote — in 
some States the deciding vote — that will be governed not by 
clamor but by reason; not by claptrap but by conscience; 
not by noise but by facts and truth; not by appeals to class 
hatred and ignorance but by appeals to public intelligence — 
public intelligence. 

The WoMs anxiety lest Mr. Taft should prove a 
Proxy and not a President continued to be complicated 
by evidence that Mr. Bryan also had been affected by the 
glamour of the retiring President's power and the appeal 
of his policies, and was in danger of conducting his cam- 
paign as a Proxy candidate. In September, at the outset 
of the active campaign, The World thus treated ^^An 
Amazing Situation '': 

The Democrats have stout rods in pickle for the Republicans 
this year, as is proved by their campaign book of 300 pages, 
but they apply none of them to the Republican President. 

They are opposed to jingoism, militarism and imperialism, 
and yet the most warlike of Presidents escapes criticism. 
They denounce extravagance at Washington, and yet the man 
who is largely responsible for this reckless expenditure finds 
no accuser. They make war upon the privileged plutocrats 
of the tariff, the combines and the trusts, and yet the only 
President who ever sent for a Harriman and arranged for the 
collection of a campaign corruption fund is nowhere condemned. 
. . . They reproach the Republican party for its failure to 



/'THE MAP OF BRYANISM'^ 259 

enforce the laws against the pirates of interstate commerce, 
and yet the President who holds that the laws are too drastic 
and that they must be modified, goes free of censure. . . . 

Mr. Roosevelt appears to have talked everybody but the 
socialists to a standstill. Democrats as well as RepubHcans 
are shy of him. His party is harshly condemned for the things 
that he has done and for the things that he has not done; but 
the man of profligacy, the man of Privilege, Protection and 
Plutocracy, the man of imperialism, the man of jingoism and 
war and the man of campaign-fund secrecy is set so high above 
the mischief he has wrought that nobody undertakes to call 
him to account. 

In his letter to Conrad Kohrs President Roosevelt 
himself, while emphatically repudiating Bryan as a dis- 
ciple, proclaimed Taft his lawful heir, and declared that 
''The policies for which I stand are his policies no less 
than mine.'' This public acceptance of Taft as a Proxy 
made the Republican candidate shoulder the burdens 
of the Roosevelt administration, which The World had 
thus summarized: 

1. It has been extravagant and wasteful. 

2. It has attempted to popularize war. 

3. It has glorified in Philippine imperialism. 

4. It has menaced the States with Federal usurpation by 
means of constructive jurisprudence. 

5. It has recklessly undermined confidence in our business 
methods, causing panic, depression and suffering. 

6. It has profited by the political contributions of corpora- 
tions seeking legislative favors. 

7. It has spoken vociferously against the malefactors of 
great wealth, but it has not brought one of them to justice. 

8. It has bullied Congress, threatening to do as it pleased, 
law or no law. 

9. It has assailed the courts when their judgments were 
contrary to its wishes. 

10. It has maintained the highest tariff ever known in a free 



260 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

country and has made no move in favor of income and inheri- 
tance taxes. 

11. It has constantly demanded law and more law for the 
protection of trusts, although existing laws are held by it to 
be too drastic for enforcement. 

12. It is now attempting to round out a career of wilfulness, 
greed, ambition and tyranny by forcing the election of a 
personally excellent and amiable Proxy. 

These, said The World, ^'axe legitimate issues; they are 
timely issues; they are Democratic issues.'' Mr. Bryan's 
^'opportunity lies not in an appeal to the Roosevelt 
Republicans, most of whom will naturally go to Mr. Taft, 
but in an appeal to Democrats and to that great inde- 
pendent element in the electorate that is tired of extrava- 
gance, of militarism, of imperialism, of rough-riderism, of 
centralization, of personal government, of big-stick ad- 
ministration and political partnership with predatory 
plutocracy. Let Mr. Taft be the Proxy. Let Mr. Taft 
be the heir to My Policies. But let Mr. Bryan be the 
Democratic candidate for President of the United States." 

In this view of the campaign of 1908 the function of 
Opposition was opposition. 

Those who with The World supported Mr. Bryan in 
that spirit did not expect his victory. They looked 
beyond to the heartening of the opposition party, the 
healing of its wounds, the promotion of its chances of 
success in later contests. And in this, at least, they were 
successful. 

Mr. Bryan stood far higher in public estimation in the 
East than in 1896. His honesty of purpose, his gifts, and 
capacity for leadership were more fairly appraised. But 
many distrusted him not more for heresies he had es- 
poused than for the fact that he had so lightly turned 
from one '^paramount" idea to another. ^'What assur- 
ance have we," men said, "that Mr. Bryan might not in 
the Presidency invent yearly new ideas for government 



^^THE MAP OF BRYANISM^^ 261 

innovation which, in that high seat, would shock the 
country and upset industry?" Between the twice-beaten 
candidate, with his handicap of innovation, and the 
Proxy of a President still powerful and popular, a Proxy 
whose own character and ability were known, the choice 
was easy to predict. 

Moreover, there was an impression- that the tariff 
would really be ^'revised by its friends." The Republi- 
can platform was discouraging, but Mr. Taft was com- 
mitted to ''honest downward revision." As to Congress, 
the people trusted to the political effect of the strong 
protest within the Republican party to compel reasonable 
lowering of duties upon the necessaries of life. 

The defeat was crushing. Mr. Bryan had a million 
more votes than Judge Parker in 1904. But Mr. Taft's 
plurality was the second largest ever received by a 
President ; Mr. Bryan's vote was smaller by 343,000 than 
in 1900; smaller by 487,000 than in 1896. In the House 
of Representatives the Republicans retained a majority 
of only fifty; the complexion of this body reflected public 
dissatisfaction. Three Congresses successively since 1904 
had shown a Republican majority decreasing. In the 
next election it was to vanish. 

The World's comment upon Mr. Bryan's defeat follows. 
It was singularly good-natured for a commentator whose 
hopes of reform in the national field had been blasted for 
twelve years by the silver folly: 

Mr. Taft owes his election less to his own strength than to 
Mr. Bryan's weakness. . . ^ Day after day we warned the 
Democracy against it. The morning after Mr. Taft's nomina- 
tion this newspaper declared without reservation that ''Bryan's 
nomination means Taft's election," and the vote yesterday 
abundantly vindicated this prediction. 

Mr. Brj^an's friends insisted, however, that he was entitled 
to another nomination backed by a united party. They had 
their way. Mr. Bryan received his nomination and a party 



262 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

more united than it has been since 1892 loyally supported 
him ; but even a united party could not overcome the handicap 
of Mr. Bryan's political record. He was weaker than his 
party, as shown by the vote for Governor in New York, Minne- 
sota, Illinois and elsewhere; weaker than his issues which he 
made still weaker by the stupendous folly of posing as Roose- 
velt's heir. . . . 

The Republican candidate had to bear the burden of general 
hard times; of a million men out of employment; of business 
interests complaining and dissatisfied; of a steadily increased 
cost of living; of an unparalleled disaffection of labor leaders; 
of an unparalleled disaffection of the negro vote; of Repub- 
lican factional fights in the great pivotal states of New York, 
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois; of a reactionary platform which 
he was obliged to modify in his speech of acceptance. 

The hard-times issue alone was a burden under which a far 
stronger candidate than Mr. Taft might have succumbed. It 
is the first time in the history of the country that a great panic, 
so far as the popular vote is concerned, has not defeated the 
party in power. 

The echoes of the expected defeat of Mr. Bryan in a 
hopeless campaign were soon forgotten in an amazing 
legal battle between the President of the United States 
and the leading newspaper of the Opposition. 



XIX 

THE PANAMA LIBEL SUIT 

1908-1911 

The Narrow Bar hetween Seas at Panama — De Lesseps and the Crash of 
■• the French Canal Company — Failure of Colombia to Ratify the Hay- 
Herran Treaty — The Prepared "Revolution" — President Roosevelt Takes 
the Isthmus — William Nelson Cromwell and the Panama Companies — 
Mr. Roosevelt's Answer to "The Indianapolis News" — "The World" 
Denounces his Statements as False — Federal Libel Suit Ordered Under a 
Charles I. Law of 1662 — Failure of the Government's Case — Crushing 
Defeat Before the Supreme Court — Later Developments. 

At Panama the American continent is thirty-five miles 
across; the height of land is some three hundred feet. 

To avoid transshipping for this land passage freight 
may sail from Colon to Panama through the Strait of 
Magellan, some seven thousand miles. By no northern 
sea route can the isthmus be turned; to open a northwest 
passage was the vain dream of early Arctic navigators. 

A canal at Panama has been talked of almost four 
hundred years. Familiar is the story how Ferdinand de 
Lesseps, conqueror of the Suez sands, formed a company 
in Paris in 1876 to cut through the isthmus; how by 1894 
$449,000,000 of securities had been sold, $240,000,000 
of money expended, one-third of it in France, and the work 
scarcely more than begun; how corruption reigned at the 
isthmus and in the Panama lobby in Paris ; how workmen 
perished in the swamps, and costly machinery rotted in 
the jungle, and the work halted, and the company failed, 
and a new one was patched up and went on spending 
money, but more slowly and with httle result ; how fraud 



264 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

blighted the undertaking, doomed by physical conditions, 
and the great work came to a standstill. 

In 1876 an American Canal Commission reported that 
the best route lay through Nicaragua. Warner Miller 
and others formed a company to dig a canal there, spent 
some $4,500,000, and gave up the task. 

In 1896 a strong lobby came into existence whose press- 
agents extolled the Panama route for an American canal, 
urged and predicted its acquisition by the United States, 
and painted dark pictures of danger to the Nicaragua 
Canal by earthquake if it were ever taken over by 
the United States and completed. In 1902 the American 
Canal Commission, changed in personnel, reported that 
if the French company would sell its rights for $40,000,000 
Panama would be a better route than Nicaragua — ^in 
shopping phrase, a ^^ bargain.'' 

Steps had been simultaneously taken to secure this 
modification of the report of 1876 and to prepare the way 
diplomatically for the transfer of the canal. In 1901 the 
Hay-Pauncefote treaty, succeeding to the Clayton-Bulwer 
treaty between Great Britain and the United States, left 
the road clear for an ail-American canal at Panama, if 
the French company could be bought out. The Hay- 
Herran treaty, negotiated with Colombia in January, 
1903, would have permitted the transfer. But when the 
Colombian Congress was called in special session for the 
purpose it failed to ratify this treaty. 

This action on the part of Colombia was possibly un- 
wise, but it was not unpatriotic, nor was refusal due, as 
has sometimes been said, to the desire to ^^blackmaiP' 
the United States. Colombia's financial interest in the 
canal and railway was great. By the contract of 1867 
she had ceded the trans-isthmian railway to the Panama 
Railroad Company for $1,000,000, an annuity of $250,000 
and the reversion of the property after ninety-nine years. 
By the contract of 1878 she had granted De Lesseps and 



THE PANAMA LIBEL SUIT 265 

his associates a ninety-nine-year concession for the con- 
struction of the Panama Canal, for S250,000 a year from 
the opening of the canal to the expiration of the term, 
when the property was to revert to Colombia. Both con- 
tracts forbade transfer to any foreign government. In 
case of infraction of this fundamental stipulation such 
concession was to become null and void, and Colombia 
was to enjoy her right of re-entry without compensation. 
Colombia was also the largest indi\ddual stockholder in 
the new French company. If the canal, as reported by 
the American Commission, was worth $40,000,000, 
Colombia had in the right of re-entry, in the reversion of 
the whole property at the end of the term, and in her stock- 
holdings something of value to sell. And she was not im- 
reasonable in desiring a price. 

Nor would it have been courteous to the greater re- 
public to suppose that a violent seizure was about to take 
place. In the treaty of 1848 the United States had guar- 
anteed the sovereignty of Colombia over the Isthmus in 
compensation for freedom of transit over it and the 
abolition of the differential duties then levied; thus en- 
abling the United States to develop the Northwestern 
territories and California before railroads were stretched 
across the continent. 

This treaty, from which the United States had so im- 
mensely benefited, was still in force in 1903. Neverthe- 
less, the Panama '^revolution'' was already prepared 
months before the Colombian Congress finally adjourned 
on October 31, 1903, without ratifying the Hay-Herran 
treaty. 

The revolution was planned, not in Panama, but in New 
York and Washington. Its master mind was Wilham 
Nelson Cromwell, general counsel for both the Panama 
Railroad and the new Panama Canal Company. His 
agent in Panama, Captain James R. Beers, seems to have 
suggested secession to the Panamanians. Dr. Amador and 

18 



266 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Senor Arango, respectively the physician and land-agent 
of the Panama Railroad, were leaders in forming a secret 
junta of seven members. At the house of one of these, 
Senor Arias, the movement was launched in the presence 
of Colonel Shaler and Herbert G. Prescott, superintend- 
ent and assistant superintendent of the Panama Railroad, 
and of some United States army officers who were in- 
specting the canal. 

On June 13, 1903, four and a half months before the 
revolution occurred, Mr. Cromwell had a conference with 
President Roosevelt in the White House. There was no 
secrecy as to the subject discussed or the policy decided 
upon; the next morning, June 14th, The World published 
an accurate forecast of the revolution, the recognition of 
the fake republic, and the making of the canal treaty with 
Panama exactly as these events afterward occurred. 
Colombia learned of the plan, not unnaturally, and her 
minister protested, threatening to recommend to the 
Colombian government the cancellation of both con- 
cessions. Cromwell disavowed Amador and left for Paris. 
Arrived in his stead M. Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a director 
of the French company. Arrangements were made with 
the Bowling Green Trust Company to give the revolu- 
tionists a hundred thousand dollars; and Amador re- 
turned to Panama carrying the flag of the Panama repub- 
lic, designed by Mme. Bunau-Varilla, and a long cable code, 
partly in his own writing, in which ^' abbot'' stood for 
''Ask Bunau-Varilla for the $4,000" and ''sorry" de- 
noted "Send 500 Remington rifles and 500,000 cartridges." 
Amador also wrote to his son on October 18th, detailing 
just how the revolution was to be accomplished. 

The plan went like clock-work. One day before hos- 
tilities commenced President Roosevelt issued an order 
forbidding Colombian troops to go within fifty miles of 
the canal to fight rebels; a United States vessel was con- 
veniently at hand; cable wires were cut to delay the 



THE PANAMA LIBEL SUIT 267 

transmission of news to Bogota; forty-two marines were 
landed; Colombian officers in Panama were bought up. 
Independence was declared in Panama on November 3d, 
three days after the Colombian Congress adjourned; in 
seven days the ^^Repubhc of Panama'' was recognized; 
in eighteen days the new nation ceded the canal zone to 
the United States for $10,000,000; in two days more 
than a month the treaty was ratified. As Mr. Roosevelt 
said in his speech at the University of California, March 
23, 1911, ^^I took the isthmus, started the canal, and then 
left Congress, not to debate the canal, but to debate me." 

The Colombian government could easily have put down 
the revolution had it not been prevented from landing 
troops in Panama by President Roosevelt's warning, and 
by the formal notification of the American Admiral in 
command of a squadron of eight war-ships, that the forces 
would not be permitted to disembark in any part of the 
Isthmus. Ten thousand men who had been ordered to 
arms were thus rendered of no avail. A thousand upon 
the spot could have crushed the rebellion. Forty times 
a thousand could have been fiu-nished if necessary. 

The taking of the canal, imperfectly understood by the 
general public at the time, was probably accepted by 
most of them as a state necessity owing to Colombia's 
obstinacy in refusing to permit a transfer of the French 
company's rights. The evidence, plain upon the face 
of events, that men outside the original French bond- 
holders' group were interested in the sale of the com- 
pany and the made-to-order revolution attracted what 
now is seen to have been surprisingly little attention. 
Even as late as August 29, 1908, the Democratic National 
Committee, giving out a statement about wealthy men 
as ^^ Guardians of Reform" in the Republican machine, 
barely mentioned William Nelson Cromwell as 'Hhe 
great Wall Street lawyer, attorney for the Panama Canal 
combine, etc." 



268 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

It was Mr. Cromwell through whom the scandal broke. 
On October 1, 1908, William J. Curtis, one of his partners, 
complained to District-Attorney Jerome of New York 
that certain persons were trying to blackmail Cromwell in 
connection with the Panama affair. Learning of this the 
next day, The World sent a reporter to the district at- 
torney, who refused any information. 

Late that evening Jonas Whitley, employed by Mr. 
Cromwell as a press-agent, came to The World office and 
warned the managing editor not to print a Panama arti- 
cle that was false. The managing editor had heard of 
no such article, and consulted the city editor, who told 
him of Curtis's complaint. Mr. Whitley had related its 
substance and had insisted that if anything were printed 
Mr. Cromwell should be allowed to make a statement. 
A synopsis of his account was dictated to a stenographer, 
and the typewritten copy given Mr. Whitley to revise. 
The news article with his corrections was printed the 
following morning, October 3, 1908. This summary of 
the Curtis complaint ran as follows: 

In brief, Mr. Curtis told Mr. Jerome it had been represented 
to Mr. Cromwell that the Democratic National Convention 
was considering the advisability of making public a statement 
that William Nelson Cromwell, in connection with M. Bunau- 
Varilla, a French speculator, had formed a syndicate at the 
time when it was quite evident that the United States would 
take over the rights of the French bond-holders in the de Lesseps 
Canal, and that this syndicate included among others Charles 
P. Taft, brother of William H. Taft, and Douglas Robinson, 
brother-in-law of President Roosevelt. Other men more 
prominent in the New York world of finance were also 
mentioned. 

According to the story unfolded by Mr. Curtis, it was said 
that the men making this charge against Mr. Cromwell had 
averred that the syndicate thus organized in connection with 
Bunau-Varilla had gone into the French market and purchased 
for about $3,500,000 the stock and bonds of the defunct de 



THE PANAMA LIBEL SUIT 269 

Lesseps company, and of the newer concern which had taken 
over the old company and had for a time prosecuted work on 
the canal. 

These financiers invested their money because of a full 
knowledge of the intention of the Government to acquire the 
French property at a price of about $40,000,000, and thus — 
because of their alleged information from high Government 
sources — were enabled to reap a rich harvest. 

The World naturally desired a statement from Mr. 
Cromwell. Mr. Whitley telephoned him, and late that 
night Cromwell made a statement by telephone to a 
stenographer, whose notes were read to him and pro- 
nounced correct. This statement, denying improper 
dealings by the persons named was printed with the 
Curtis complaint. 

Only this Curtis complaint, which was never submitted 
to a grand jury by District- Attorney Jerome, brought the 
names of Charles P. Taft and Douglas Robinson into dis- 
cussion. Mr. Taft denied any connection with the 
Panama syndicate, and his denial was at once accepted 
by The World as conclusive. Mr. Robinson refused to 
make any statement. Like Mr. Taft, he owed his ap- 
pearance in the news article solely to Mr. Cromwell and 
Mr. Cromwell's press-agent. 

The Panama mystery was discussed in a desultory way 
during the campaign, but it was not regarded as an issue. 
Mr. Roosevelt, who was managing Mr. Taft's campaign 
from the White House, paid no attention to the articles. 

On November 2^, the day before election, however. 
The Indianapolis News, the leading paper in Indiana, 
which had refused to support the Republican national 
and state tickets, printed an editorial asking who got 
the $40,000,000 the United States had paid. Morally, 
the election in Indiana was a Republican defeat, for, 
although Mr. Taft carried the state by 10,731, a Demo- 
cratic Governor and Legislature were elected, a Democrat 



270 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

was sent to the Senate in place of Mr. Hemenway, and 
only three Republican Representatives were elected out 
of thirteen. Mr. Roosevelt and his friends attributed 
the result largely to The Indianapolis News, 

William Dudley Foulke sent to the President on 
November 9th the Panama editorial from The Indianapolis 
News and suggested that ^'if the statements of The News 
are true our people ought to know it; if not true, they 
ought to have some just means of estimating what credit 
should be given in other matters to a journal which 
disseminates falsehoods.'' Mr. Foulke's curiosity was 
shared by many citizens; its expression brought forth on 
December 1st a reply from Mr. Roosevelt, made public 
December 7th. 

In this the President denied many statements referred 
to in Mr. Foulke's letter and said of the editor of The 
Indianapolis News, ^^Mr. Delavan Smith is a conspicuous 
offender against the laws of honesty and truthfulness.'' 
Deahng with the pin-chase of the Canal, he asserted that 
the United States ''paid $40,000,000 direct to the French 
Government, getting the receipt of the liquidator appoint- 
ed by the French Government to receive the same"; that 
''the United States Government has not the slightest 
knowledge as to the particular individuals among whom 
the French Government distributed the sum" ; that "this 
was the business of the French Government"; that "so 
far as I know there was no syndicate"; that "there 
certainly was no syndicate in the United States that to 
my knowledge had any dealings with the Government, 
directly or indirectly"; that "the people have had the 
most minute official knowledge "of the Panama affair; that 
"every import ant step and every important document have 
been made public," and that the " abominable falsehood " 
that any American citizen had profited from the sale of 
the Panama Canal "is a slander not against the American 
government, but against the French government." 



THE PANAMA LIBEL SUIT 271 

We now come to the real beginning of the Panama 
libel suit unsuccessfully waged against two newspapers 
in the name of the Government of the United States. 

The World had not previously discussed the Panama 
matter editorially. But when Mr. Roosevelt said that 
the United States Government ''paid the $40,000,000 
direct to the French Government/' it decided that the 
time had come when the country was entitled to the 
truth, and it challenged Mr. Roosevelt upon the official 
records and demanded a Congressional investigation. 
In this history-making editorial The World accused the 
President of ''deliberate misstatements of fact in his 
scandalous personal attack upon Mr. Delavan Smith." 
The article continued: 

The Indiananapolis News said, in an editorial for which Mr. 
Roosevelt assails Mr. Smith: 

"It has been charged that the United States bought from 
American citizens for $40,000,000 property that cost those 
citizens only $12,000,000. There is no doubt that the govern- 
ment paid $40,000,000 for the property. But who got the 
money?" 

President Roosevelt's reply to this most proper question is 
for the most part a string of abusive and defamatory epithets. 
But he also makes the following statements as truthful informa- 
tion to the American people: 

"The United States did not pay a cent of the $40,000,000 to 
any American citizen. 

"The Government paid this $40,000,000 direct to the French 
Government, getting the receipt of the liquidator appointed by 
the French Government to receive the same. 

"The United States Government has not the slightest knowl- 
edge as to the particular individuals among whom the French 
Government distributed the same. 

"So far as I know, there was no syndicate; there certainly 
was no syndicate in the United States that to my knowledge 
had any dealings with the Government directly or indirectly." 

To the best of The World's knowledge and belief, each and. 



272 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

all of these statements made by Mr. Roosevelt, and quoted 
above, are untrue, and Mr. Roosevelt must have known they 
were untrue when he made them. 

Only one man, William Nelson Cromwell, knew the 
whole story of the transaction. President Roosevelt and 
Secretary Root aided Mr. Cromwell in consummating 
the Panama revolution and arranging the payments for 
the old canal — '^$40,000,000 for the canal properties and 
an additional $10,000,000 for a manufactured Panama 
republic, every penny of both of which sums was paid by 
check on the United States Treasury to J. P. Morgan & 
Co. — not to the French Government, as Mr. Roosevelt 
says, but to J. P. Morgan & Co.'' The history of the 
case is then resumed': 

The old French company organized by Ferdinand de Lesseps 
in 1879 failed in 1889, years before Mr. Cromwell's relations 
with President Roosevelt began. As Mr. Cromwell testified 
before the Senate committee on February 26, 1906, "we never 
had any connection with the so-called de Lesseps company. 
Neither did the United States Government conduct negotiations 
with the old French Panama Canal Company." 

What Mr. Cromwell did represent was the new Panama 
Canal Company, the American Panama Canal Company and 
the $5,000,000 syndicate which he formed to finance the new 
companies. After Mr. Cromwell had testified ''I do not recall 
any contract," Senator Morgan produced a contract reading 
(Panama Canal Hearing, Vol. II, page 146) : 

"Mr. William Nelson Cromwell is exclusively empowered, 
under the formal agreement with the Board of Directors of the 
Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal de Panama of France, to effect 
with an American syndicate the Americanization of the Panama 
Canal Company on the following basis." 

Senator Morgan unearthed a copy of the $5,000,000 syndicate 
agreement, which provided that the subscribers should contract 
with William Nelson Cromwell to pay in $5,000,000 in cash 
and to take their several allotments in the enterprise. 



THE PANAMA LIBEL SUIT 273 

Five million dollars was more than ample to buy the majority 
of the old Panama stock. . . . 

Following that, to quote from Mr. Cromwell's testimony, 
''in May, 1904, I, representing the new Panama Canal, and 
Judges Day and Russell, representing Attorney-General Knox, 
consummated" the transfer and sale to the United States. 

Mr. Roosevelt says "the Government paid this 140,000,000 
direct to the French Government." 

Mr. Cromwell testified that the United States paid the 
money to J. P. Morgan & Co. 

Mr. Roosevelt says ''the French Government distributed 
the sum." 

Mr. Cromwell testified as to how he distributed it. 

Mr. Roosevelt talks of "getting the receipt of the liqui- 
dator appointed by the French Government to receive the 
same." 

Mr. Cromwell testified: "Of the $40,000,000 thus paid by 
the United States Government $25,000,000 was paid to the 
liquidator of the old Panama Canal Company under and in 
pursuance of an agreement entered into between the liquidator 
and the new company. ... Of the balance of $15,000,000 paid 
to the new Panama Canal Company, $12,000,000 have already 
been distributed among its stockholders, and the remainder 
is now being held awaiting final distribution and paj^ment." 

As to Mr. Roosevelt's statement that "there was no syn- 
dicate," he could have read the "syndicate subscription 
agreement" on page 1150, Vol. II, of the testimony before the 
Committee on Interoceanic Canals — if he had cared for the 
truth. 

That the United States was not dealing with ^Hhe 
French Government" or the "liquidator appointed by the 
French Government" or any one save Cromwell and his 
associates was made clear by the account of Gabriel 
Duque. Senor Duque said that Cromwell offered him 
the Presidency of the Panama republic, and told him that 
he might rely upon the help of the United States. "We 
bought this general and that one," said Duque, "paying 
three to four thousand dollars per general." Accord- 



274 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

ing to Duque, '^Mr. Cromwell made the revolution." 
Then . . . 

Mr. Cromwell, having been elected by the Panama Republic 
as general counsel, and he and J. Pierpont Morgan having 
been appointed a ''fiscal commission," negotiated with President 
Roosevelt, by which the United States paid $10,000,000 more 
to "the fiscal commission" for Mr. Cromwell's Panama Repub- 
lic. Of this money three-quarters is still under the control 
of 'Hhe fiscal commission." 

Why did the United States pay $40,000,000 for a bankrupt 
property whose control could undoubtedly have been bought in 
the open market for less than $4,000,000? 

Who were the new Panama Canal Company? 

Who bought up the obligations of the old Panama Canal 
Company for a few cents on the dollar? . . . 

Whether all the profits went into William Nelson Crom- 
well's hands or whatever became of them, the fact that Theodore 
Roosevelt as President of the United States issues a public 
statement about such an important matter full of flagrant 
untruths, reeking with misstatements, challenging line by 
line the testimony of his associate Cromwell and the official 
record, makes it imperative that full publicity come at once 
through the authority and by the action of Congress. 

The election was over. More than two months had 
elapsed since the publication of Mr. CromwelFs com- 
plaint to the New York district attorney. No man men- 
tioned in any article had appealed to the courts, which 
were open to punish libel. 

The moving cause of the extraordinary action that fol- 
lowed was not the ^^ libel upon the United States governments^ 
of October 3d, as alleged by President Roosevelt. The 
government had not been libeled. The cause was that the 
President himself had been pilloried on December 8th as a 
publisher of falsehood. 

December 15th President Roosevelt sent to Congress a 
long special message upon Panama containing the state- 



THE PANAMA LIBEL SUIT 275 

ment that the $40,000,000 in payment for canal rights was 
distributed in Paris to the owners of the new and old 
Panama companies. That Mr. Roosevelt's powers of 
invective were in working order is indicated in these 
passages : 

These stories were first brought to my attention as published in a 
paper in Indianapolis, called the News, edited by Mr. Delavan Smith. 
The stories were scurrilous and libelous in character and false in 
every essential particular. Mr. Smith shelters himself behind the 
excuse that he merely accepted the statements which had appeared 
in a paper pubhshed in New York, The World, owned by Mr. Joseph 
Puhtzer. It is idle to say that the known character of Mr. Pulitzer 
and his newspaper are such that the statements in that paper will be 
beheved by nobody; unfortunately, thousands of persons are ill 
informed in this respect and beheve the statements they see in 
print, even though they appear in a newspaper published by Mr. 
Pulitzer. . . . 

Now, these stories, as a matter of fact, need no investigation what- 
ever. ... In form, they are in part hbels upon individuals, upon 
Mr. Taft and Mr. Robinson, for instance. But they are in fact wholly, 
and in form partly, a hbel upon the United States Government. . . . 

The real offender is Mr. Joseph Pulitzer, editor and proprietor of 
The World. While the criminal offense of which Mr. Pulitzer has 
been guilty is in form a libel upon individuals, the great injury done 
is in blackening the good name of the American people. It should 
not be left to a private citizen to sue Mr. Pulitzer for libel. He should 
be prosecuted for Hbel by the Government authorities. . . . The 
Attorney-General has under consideration the form in which the 
proceedings against Mr. Pulitzer shall be brought. . . . 

Attorney-General Bonaparte^s proceedings took the 
form of indictments procured from a District of Columbia 
Federal Grand Jury charging The World, Mr. Pulitzer, and 
certain of The World's editors, and The Indianapolis News 
and its editors, with criminal libel in articles circulated 
in the District of Columbia, libeling the United States 
Government and also Elihu Root, William Nelson Crom- 
well, Charles P. Taft, Douglas Robinson, ex-President 
Roosevelt, and President Taft. These indictments were 
found upon a section of the District of Columbia code 



276 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

based upon the English law of 1662 enacted in the tyran- 
nous time of Charles I. for the muzzling of the press. 

President Taft, who succeeded on March 4, 1909, to 
Mr. Roosevelt, properly made no effort to halt proceedings 
with whose inception he had nothing to do. Early in the 
Taft administration Joseph B. Kealing, United States 
District Attorney in Indianapolis, resigned his post, which 
he had held almost eight years, rather than be a party to 
the suit. In his letter to Attorney-General Bonaparte 
Mr. Kealing said: 

As to the guilt or innocence of the defendants on the question of 
libel I do not attempt to say. If guilty, they should be prosecuted; 
but properly indicted and prosecuted, in the right place — viz., in their 
homes. It is only with the question of removal that I have to do. 
I am not in accord with the Government in its attempt to put a strained 
construction on the law, to drag the defendants from their homes to 
the seat of the Government, to be tried and punished, while there is 
a good and sufficient law in this jurisdiction in the State court. 

I beheve the principle involved is dangerous, striking at the very 
foundation of our form of Government. I cannot, therefore, honestly 
and conscientiously insist to the court that such is the law, or that 
such construction should be put on it. Not being able to do this, 
I do not feel that I can, in justice to my office, continue to hold it and 
decline to assist. 

Preparations for the issue were unceasing up to October 
11th, when the Indianapolis case was taken before Federal 
Judge Anderson, who dismissed it the following day. In 
his opinion Judge Anderson did more than decide a 
technical point, as these extracts will show: 

It is the duty of a pubHc newspaper, such as is owned and conducted 
by these defendants to tell the people, its subscribers, the facts that 
it may find out about pubhc questions or matters of public interest. 
It is its duty and its right to draw inferences from the facts known, 
to draw them for the people. . . . 

So far as the record has been read — and that is all the part that I 
have an acquaintance with — Mr. Cromwell stood upon his privilege 
whenever questions were asked [by the Morgan Senate Committee 
investigating the Panama matter], the answer to which would or 



THE PANAMA LIBEL SUIT 277 

might reflect upon him and his associates, but whenever a question 
was asked which gave him an opportunity to say something in their 
behaK he ostentatiously thanked the examiner for the question and 
proceeded to answer it. To my mind that gave just ground for suspi- 
cion. I am suspicious about it now. 

There are many very pecuUar circumstances about the history of 
this Panama Canal, or tliis Panama Canal business. . . . Now, there 
were a number of people who thought there was something not just 
exactly right about that transaction, and I mil say for myself that now 
I feel a natural curiosity to know what the real truth was. . . . 

Here was a matter of great pubhc interest, of pubUc concern. I 
was interested in it; you were interested in it; we were all interested 
in it. Here was a newspaper printing the news, or trying to. Here 
was a matter up for discussion, and I cannot say now, I am not willing 
to say, that the inferences are too strongly drawn. . . . 

To my mind, that man has read the history of our institutions to 
very Httle purpose who does not look with very grave apprehension 
upon the success of a proceeding such as this — if the history of liberty 
means an>i;hing, if the constitutional guarantees mean anything — if 
the prosecuting authorities should have the power to select a tribunal, 
if there be more than one tribunal to select from, at the capital of 
the United States; that the Government should have that power and 
drag citizens of chstant States there to be tried. 

The defendants will be discharged. 

No action was taken by the Government to remove 
Mr. Pulitzer and The WorMs news editors to the District 
of Columbia; but another attempt was made to stretch 
the law to permit the prosecution of The World in the 
Federal Comets without raising the question of removal. 

Under instructions from President Roosevelt United 
States Attorney Henry L. Stimson had also obtained indict- 
ments for criminal libel from the Federal Grand Jury in 
New York against The World and an editor, charging the 
circulation of twenty-nine copies of the issues complained 
of within 'Hhe fort and military post and reservation of 
West Point" and within ^Hhe tract of land" whereon 
stands ^'a needful building used by the United States as 
a post-office." 

This indictment, couched almost in the language of the 



278 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Sedition Act, charged that it was the purpose of The 
World ^Ho stir up disorder among the people. '^ The 
Sedition Act reads, 'Ho stir up sedition among the 
people." 

The law on which the government relied for this 
prosecution was that of July 7, 1898, entitled ''An Act to 
Protect the Harbor Defenses and Fortifications Con- 
structed or Used by the United States from Malicious 
Injury, and for Other Purposes.'' It was founded on an 
act of March 3, 1825. It had never before been invoked 
by the federal authorities as giving them the right to 
punish libel. 

It was asserted by United States Attorney Stimson in a 
letter to District- Attorney Jerome of New York that: 

These publications . . . appear to have been circulated by 
the newspaper in question in a number of distinct and indepen- 
dent jurisdictions. ... In each of these jurisdictions, under well- 
known principles of law, each of these publications would constitute 
a separate offense. 

As there were 2,809 government reservations corre- 
sponding to West Point and the Post-office building, a 
newspaper might under this theory of law be prosecuted 
from one end of the country to the other for an article 
that was neither written nor printed on any of these 
reservations. 

At the suggestion of counsel for The World court orders 
for the examination of witnesses were addressed through 
diplomatic channels to the judicial authorities of the 
French and Panama governments. It was necessary for 
The World to pay the expenses of United States Attorney 
Wise and Deputy Attorney-General Stuart MacNamara 
to Paris, and of Mr. Knapp, of the United States Attorney's 
office, to Panama, as the government refused to assume 
any part of the cost. 

The State Department notified De Lancey Nicoll, of 



THE PANAMA LIBEL SUIT 279 

The World^s counsel, that the American Ambassador to 
France would assist Coudert Brothers, The World^s 
counsel in Paris, in obtaining the authorization of the 
Minister of Justice for the examination of witnesses. 
But there was difficulty in getting at the records, and the 
attempt failed. The World, however, collected much 
evidence in Paris and in Panama. A staff correspondent 
was sent to Bogota, and by the courtesy of the Colombian 
government secured certified copies of records and other 
documentary evidence. 

When the case came up for trial in the United States 
Circuit Court in New York City on January 25, 1910, 
before Judge Charles M. Hough, The World was prepared 
to sustain the defense of justification. But the form in 
which the prosecution was brought forced responsibilities 
which could not be disregarded. The World could not go 
to trial upon the merits of the case without conceding the 
existence of a federal libel law and placing the press of 
the country at the mercy of the President. Not merely 
in its own interest, but to safeguard the free discussion 
of national questions, it felt obliged to resist every pre- 
tense of the federal authorities that they had a co-ordinate 
jurisdiction with state authorities in prosecuting libel. 

Argument was therefore directed upon jurisdiction. 
Distinguished counsel were engaged: Henry A. Wise, 
Stuart McNamara, and James R. Knapp for the govern- 
ment; De Lancey Nicoll, John D. Lindsay, and Thomas 
Steven Fuller. After hearing testimony and the sum- 
ming up of counsel Judge Hough announced a decision 
which invited an appeal to higher authority. The dis- 
position of the case is indicated by the record: 

Judge Hough: I am of the opinion that the construction of this 
Act claimed by the prosecution is opposed to the spirit and tenor 
of legislation for many years on the subject of national territorial 
jurisdiction. It is a novelty, and the burden of upholding a novelty 
is on him who alleges it. . . . This very interesting question can 



280 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

be lawfully presented to the Supreme Court of the United States, 
and I am sure that the judgment of that Court should be obtained 
before either the time of this Court or the time of jurors be occupied 
in going into a matter which could not, in my judgment, if exploited 
with a question of law of this kind hanging over it, be determined 
with any profit to the public, or any benefit to the administration of 
justice. 

It is, therefore, ordered that a judgment of this Court be entered 
quashing the indictment herein, because upon the construction of 
the statute, hereinbefore stated, the indictment is not authorized by 
the statute upon which it rests. 

Mr. Wise: Before that is done, I ask that a juror be withdrawn, 
in order that no question of jeopardy may enter into the case. 

The Court: Motion granted. 

President Taft was a skilled lawyer and had been a 
judge. Doubtless he had little liking for the prosecution 
begun by Mr. Roosevelt and would gladly have seen it 
drop with defeat before Judge Anderson and Judge 
Hough. The World was not satisfied with any decision 
short of the highest tribunal; and in a series of articles it 
demanded an appeal by the government to the Supreme 
Court. The initiative was with the government, in 
form; in fact it rested with the paper which prodded the 
government. Yielding finally to the demand for a con- 
clusive settlement the Department of Justice took an 
appeal, and on January 3, 1911, the Supreme Court 
handed down an opinion sustaining Judge Hough in 
quashing the indictment, on the ground that the federal 
government had no jurisdiction. 

The Supreme Court did not discuss the point at issue — 
^'Who got the money ?'^ — which had so interested Judge 
Anderson. Like Judge Hough, it followed the question 
of jurisdiction, of reasonable inference as to the intent of 
Congress in passing the laws appealed to. There was no 
rebuke of a co-ordinate department of the government 
which had grasped at tyrannous power. But the decision 
was unanimous. 

At the Columbia Club in Indianapolis shortly before 



THE PANAMA LIBEL SUIT 281 

the 1910 election President Roosevelt had enlivened a 
social occasion by calling Judge Anderson a ^'jackass and 
a crook'' for his decision in The Indianapolis News case. 
He did not now denoimce all the members of the Supreme 
Court, but their decision may have added emphasis to 
his later statement that our courts are ^'fossilized.'' 

The World on January 4, 1911, thus summed up its 
victory: 

The unanimous decision handed down by the United States 
Supreme Court j^esterday in the Roosevelt-Panama libel case 
against The World is the most sweeping victory won for freedom 
of speech and of the press in this country since the American 
people destroyed the Federalist party more than a century 
ago for enacting the infamous Sedition law. 

In unanimously sustaining Judge Hough's decision quashing 
the Roosevelt indictments against The World on the ground 
that the Federal Government had no jurisdiction, the Supreme 
Court upholds every contention advanced by The World since 
the outset of this prosecution. . . . 

Federal jurisdiction was claimed by Mr. Roosevelt and 
Attorney-General Bonaparte under the pretext that the regular 
circulation at West Point of twenty-nine copies out of 382,410 
of The World containing certain Panama news articles, and the 
sending of one copy free to a Post-Office inspector in the Govern- 
ment Building in New York City in compHance with the postal 
regulations, constituted the publication of a libel in these 
reservations, and that under this statute the Federal Govern- 
ment could criminally prosecute The World. 

There were few newspapers, the argument continues, 
that could not be ruined by the government by the mere 
legal expense of having to defend itself in a '' number of 
distinct and independent jurisdictions" under District 
Attorney Stimson's interpretation of the law. In carrying 
the case to the coiu:t of last resort President Taft and Mr. 
Wickersham had rendered a notable service to American 
liberty. The article concludes: 

19 



282 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

The decision of the Supreme Court is so sweeping that no 
other President will be tempted to follow in the footsteps of 
Theodore Roosevelt, no matter how greedy he may be for 
power, no matter how resentful of opposition. . . . 

As De Lancey Nicoll, The World's counsel, said in his argu- 
ment before the Supreme Court: 

'^As a matter of fact this prosecution is premature. It is 
born before its time. It belongs to that new dispensation when 
the Federal Government shall have taken to itself all power 
and all authority, when the States shall have been reduced to 
mere geographical divisions of the national domain, and when 
Federal tribunals shall no longer decide cases in accordance 
with precedent and authority and the law of the land, but in 
accordance with the need and spirit of the time as they may be 
interpreted by some great steward of the public welfare.^' 

It was indeed premature. With the smashing of the New 
Nationalism at the November elections comes the smashing of 
the Roosevelt doctrine of lese-majesty and the smashing of the 
Roosevelt doctrine of Nullification by the highest tribunal of 
the Nation. We are still living under a government of laws 
and not of men. We are still living under the old Constitution 
as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States, not 
under the New Nationalism as interpreted by some "steward 
of the public welfare" in Washington. 

While the Panama case was still pending in the courts 
a curious side-light was thrown upon it by the publication 
in The World, October 17, 1910, of a photographed fac- 
simile of the account of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. with the late 
E. H. Harriman, covering a series of transactions in 
Panama shares. This account was opened in January, 
1902, the month and the year when President Roosevelt 
instructed the Isthmian Canal Commission, in effect, to 
reverse its report recommending the Nicaraguan route, 
and to favor Panama instead. At the very time, there- 
fore, when Mr. Harriman was called to the White House 
by President Roosevelt in October, 1904, and went back 
to Wall Street to raise $260,000 for the Republican cam- 



THE PANAMA LIBEL SUIT 283 

paign fund he was carrying a speculative account in Pana- 
ma shares. The account showed a profit of $86,447.38 
upon total investments of $253,060.47. 

The ^Haking'^ of the Panama zone by Mr. Roosevelt, 
though it hastened the digging of the canal, intensified 
distrust of the United States throughout Latin America. 
It immeasurably harmed American relations with these 
countries, whose developinent is so interesting a political 
and commercial study. Colombia had a just claim upon 
the United States. The World had opposed the payment 
of $10,000,000 to the made-to-order republic of Panama, 
but favored some friendly arrangement with Colombia 
which should admit and mend her grievance by such 
reparation as agreement or arbitration might decide. 

The slate is clean for such accommodation. Colombians 
early protests against the taking of the canal were ig- 
nored. In 1906 Secretary Root stated to Senor Don 
Diego Mendoza, then Colombian Minister in Washing- 
ton, that the United States had followed its sense of right 
and justice in espousing the cause of a weak people, the 
Panamanians, against the stronger government of Colom- 
bia. Senor Mendoza in reply specified grounds for asking 
arbitration, but his request was ignored. His successor, 
Minister Cortez, signed the Root-Cortez-Arosemena 
treaties, which were rejected by the Colombian Senate. 
So unpopular were they that on his return home Senor 
Cortez was driven back on board ship by infuriated 
Colombians. After Colonel Roosevelt's statement on 
March 23, 1911, that he took the Canal Zone, a new 
minister, Dr. Borda, filed a new protest; so did his suc- 
cessor, General Ospina, equally without avail. 

Following General Ospina's letter, pointing out that 
Secretary Knox's proposed visit to Colombia in February, 
1912, might be inopportune if his country's claims re- 
mained unconsidered, Colombia sent Senor Don Julio 
Betancourt to Washington, and by prolonged negotiations 



284 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

through him and through the American Minister to 
Colombia, James T. Du Bois, the latter was authorized 
to offer Colombia $10,000,000 in cash, special privileges 
in the canal, and the arbitration of reversionary rights in 
the Panama Railroad. Mr. Du Bois intimated unofficially 
that the money payment might be raised to $25,000,000. 
These offers were rejected, Colombia requiring instead 
that all differences relating to the acquisition of the Canal 
Zone be submitted to arbitration, or that the United 
States should make a direct proposal of both moral and 
material reparation to Colombia. 

At the time of writing, therefore, there remains no pro- 
posal pending between the two countries which should 
hamper a new attempt at settlement. Diplomacy has 
apparently exhausted its resources for directly dealing 
between the two nations. The case has seemed to The 
World eminently one for arbitration. 

And, since the operation of the canal will chiefly benefit 
the great Republic, The World not only opposed the action 
of Congress in exempting American coastwise traffic from 
canal tolls in defiance of treaty obligations with Great 
Britain, but it has urged that the new way be made 
toll-free to all the nations of the vforld. 



XX 

PUBLIC SERVICE 

1883-1913 

"The World's" Long Fight for the Income Tax — "Reversing the Court'' as 
to the Gas Trust — Working-men's Acts — The Japanese War — The Found- 
ing of the School of Journalism — Opposing the Catskill Water Folly — 
"The World" and the Courts — Opposition to the Recall of Judges and of 
Judicial Decisions — The Initiative and Referendum. 

''The World's" Platform of Public Service has been 
printed in an earlier chapter. Much water has flowed 
under bridges since May 17, 1883. How has the Platform 
fared? 

Reform of the civil service has been furthered by the 
examination system in the federal departments and in 
those of most states and cities. 

Vote-buying and the coercion of employees are less 
prevalent since the passage of secret-ballot laws. 

A tariff for revenue has been vetoed by government 
extravagance. All that reformers now expect is a tariff 
lowered to moderate height. 

The income tax has been the bone of hot contention. 
In the months following Mr. Pulitzer's purchase of The 
World he called it ''the fairest and most democratic tax a 
government can impose"; cited the vast fortunes of the 
Vanderbilts, Goulds, Sages, and Fields, and denounced 
the outrage that "while the middle classes pay taxes on 
all that they consume these millionaires should escape 
their proper share of the public burdens"; explained 
how the British income tax had been "re-established after 



286 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

a suspension of twenty years by a Parliament composed 
of the representatives of property" because it was ^^neces- 
sary for the public safety" and how it had been ^'con- 
tinued ever since in obedience to the popular will." 

In 1894 an income-tax law passed Congress. It has 
been seen how, although such a tax had already been 
levied in the United States, the Supreme Court declared 
the re-enactment illegal, in a five-to-four vote. Difference 
of opinion between those who thought a Constitutional 
amendment should be passed, those who denounced the 
Supreme Court and wished to pack it to reverse its de- 
cision, and those who thought, with The World, that a 
valid law if properly framed could be passed without an 
amendment, delayed action. In 1906 The World was 
still unweariedly advising that the United States should 
'' borrow the best ideas" of England, France, and Ger- 
many, and adopt '^ progressive inheritance taxes, with a 
liberal exemption of small estates" and '^ graduated in- 
come tax, with liberal exemption both for persons and 
families." 

On February 9, 1907, The Worldy approving President 
Roosevelt's demand for a graduated income tax and a 
federal inheritance tax, thus summarized the principles 
of income taxation on which the '^ common sense of 
Europe" agreed: 

1. There should be a generous exemption. This is $800 in 
England and is to be $1,000 in France. A much larger exemp- 
tion would be required in this country. 

2. There should be a distinction made between earned income 
and income from investment. 

3. The tax should be graduated, falling most heavily upon 
those colossal incomes whose fortunate recipients would other- 
wise most nearly escape taxation. 

4. Income tax should be supplemented by graduated succes- 
sion taxes upon inherited estates. Already in England this 
tax rises to 8 per cent, upon the largest fortunes. 



PUBLIC SERVICE 287 

In a special message on June 16, 1909, President Taft 
followed President Roosevelt in urging the income-tax 
amendment upon the attention of Congress, and it was 
soon passed in the following form: 

The Congress shall have the power to levy and collect taxes on 
incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment 
among the States and without regard to any census enumeration. 

Two weeks before the assembling of the New York 
Legislature The World was already urging Governor 
Hughes to recommend ratification of the amendment. 
Much time would have been saved if he had seen the 
matter in the same light as President Taft. Instead, he 
advised against ratification because of the inclusion of 
the words ^^from whatever source derived.'' This phrase 
was construed to permit the taxation of state and munici- 
pal bonds by the federal government. Said The World on 
January 6, 1910: 

Gov. Hughes has furnished to the opponents of the income- 
tax amendment the one thing that they have been seeking — 
a plausible argument from a highly respectable source. . . . 

Regardless of the distinction he makes. Gov. Hughes's 
message will be hailed with delight by all the interests that 
oppose an income tax. . . . Wall Street is always for State 
rights when there is any money in it. . . . It will turn Gov. 
Hughes's message, his arguments, his influence and his great 
reputation to its own account in every State capital in which 
there is a chance to prevent ratification of the amendment. 

What The World predicted happened. Enemies of the 
measure divided the counsels of its friends, now hesitating 
anew whether to amend the amendment by omitting the 
four offending words or to pass it unchanged. The latter 
course prevailed, and state after state ratified the measure. 
The accession of New York came only with the election of a 
Democratic Legislature, and it was with difficulty that the 



288 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

measure was pushed by public opinion past the barrier 
erected by the ^^Old Guard '^ in Albany. No organ of 
public opinion aided so steadily and powerfully as The 
World to bring this great measure to triumph. 

The taxation of monopolies and corporations covered 
two planks in the platform of The World; and in securing 
the Franchise tax of New York it led the way in squeezing 
out of these combinations some assistance in bearing the 
public burdens. 

Akin to the Franchise-tax campaign was the long strug- 
gle of The World to compel lower indirect taxation by the 
Gas Trust, through a reduction of its rate first to one 
dollar a thousand cubic feet, and then to eighty cents. 
Every step was fiercely fought. The Legislature under 
persistent prodding authorized an investigation com- 
mittee which, with Charles E. Hughes as counsel, brought 
out in 1905 a mass of facts upon which an eighty-cent 
law was passed. The Gas Trust went into the federal 
courts upon a plea of confiscation, and won victories 
before Referee Hasten and in the United States Circuit 
Court in New York City. When these decisions were 
rendered The World caused some sarcastic comment by 
"reversing'' them; as when on May 22, 1907, it said: 
"It is doubtful whether the Supreme Court of the United 
States will concur with Referee Hasten' s findings"; 
as when it said of Judge Hough's decision, based upon 
Referee Hasten's finding that the eighty-cent bill was 
unconstitutional : 

This view of the fourteenth amendment makes the Railroad 
Rate law unconstitutional. The free street-ear transfer law 
could be set aside on the same ground. No franchise could be 
repealed, for that would destroy ''property." No franchise 
once capitalized could be amended if profits were thereby 
reduced. 

Whether New York City has eighty-cent or ninety-cent or 
one -dollar gas is of little consequence compared with the 



PUBLIC SERVICE 289 

great question of whether a franchise is superior to legislative 
restriction or legislation. 

Referee Masten's decision as accepted by Judge Hough 
menaced more than the eightj^-cent gas law: 

Baldly expressed, he decides that a public franchise becomes 
private property when in the possession of a corporation, and 
that the value of the capitalized profits cannot be diminished 
by the Legislature. In other words, that the people once having 
granted a franchise are thereafter helpless to protect themselves 
from extortion, once that extortion is capitalized. 

Obviously, a grant of sovereign power cannot be irrevocably 
made to a corporation unless the sovereignty of a State is 
divisible. If a franchise grant is not revocable the people can 
divest themselves of their sovereignty, and the moment that 
any people has divested itself of sovereignty, either in whole or 
in part, that people ceases to be free and independent to the 
extent that its sovereignty has been parted with. 

The decision of Referee Masten is revolutionary. Should it 
by any misfortune be sustained by the Supreme Court of the 
United States the governmental powers of this country would 
henceforth be divided. The most profitable part of these 
powers would be exercised by public - service corporations. 
The remainder, constantly dwindling, would be all the people 
would have left. 

On January 4, 1909, the Supreme Court found, as The 
World had done, that a public-service company cannot 
capitalize good will; that no reasonable rate can be called 
confiscatory until it has been tried; that if the eighty-cent 
rate did not provide a fair return the Gas Trust could 
appeal for relief; that a corporation cannot capitalize at 
its own valuation and require a rate profitable thereon. 

In questions affecting working-men The World has 
kept the spirit of its 1883 program. It long sustained the 
efforts made in New York for a workmen's compensation 
act. It held that the system under which employers 



290 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

intrust to insurance companies the task of fighting damage 
suits by injured workmen, and every effort of delay is 
used to defeat just claims, is costly and repulsive. When 
the Court of Appeals decided that a Compensation act 
passed by the New York Legislature was invalid, The 
World urged that a constitutional amendment should be 
adopted enabling the Legislature to pass an act that 
would stand review. The World has also pressed ad- 
vanced child-labor laws and factory acts upon attention. 

The World has naturally been interested in the efforts 
of democracy abroad. It kept a friendly attitude toward 
the Portuguese Republic, the short-lived reforms of the 
Young Turks, the attempts at self-government and na- 
tional union in Persia, China, the Balkans. It led the 
fight against the machinations of American capitalists 
and jingoes who would use the State Department to bully 
weaker nations in the interest of schemes of exploitation ; 
and, as often before, it gave the contest a name that was 
a weapon. As '^ Dollar Diplomacy" it made the attempt 
to force a loan upon China that China neither needed nor 
asked for, and various menaces of Central American 
states, odious to the people. It has tried to avoid the 
error of taking its views of British politics from Tory 
London, and parroting the cry that more democracy is 
ruining England. Its sympathies have been Home Rule 
and Liberal; it has not been democratic at home and 
Tory abroad. 

The Russo-Japanese War appealed to The World be- 
cause of its hatred of Russian autocracy and its hope that 
defeat might further domestic reforms in the Cossack 
Empire. From the beginning of the conflict in 1904 
it was never deceived by the giant proportions of Russia. 
It called the fear of Russia's power "a pricked bubble." 
It hailed the Czar's acknowledgment of the ^' right of the 
people to participate in the government" through the 
Duma, and his resolve, as the Imperial rescript ran. 



PUBLIC SERVICE 291 

^^ henceforth, with the help of God, to convene the worth- 
iest men possessing the confidence of the people, and 
elected by them, to participate in the elaboration and 
consideration of legislative measures." 

When Rojestvensky^s fleet was on its ill-starred way 
half round the world to attack Japan, and when naval 
experts were fighting shy of predicting defeat or victory, 
Mr. Puhtzer sent peremptory instructions to say '^with- 
out ifs or buts" that the Russian fleet would be destroyed. 
There was accordingly printed on April 11, 1905, a 
prediction that attracted much attention from its 
boldness: 

Rojestvensky's fleet plunging northward into the China Sea 
to its doom is to-day the most thrilling spectacle in the world. 

All the elements of dramatic effect are combined in its dogged 
advance. The element of heightened tension, since for six 
months the world has read with slowly mounting interest of 
its progress, its haltings, checks, feints, coalings, target practice; 
the element of tragedy, for the whole air about it is heavy 
with the menace of death ; the element of valor and of sacrifice, 
for never were brave men pushed forward to slaughter with 
more cynic cruelty. . . . 

And so the battle-ships with their weed-grown bottoms, 
which will matter little enough when they rest under the waves 
from their last voyage, and the old cruisers, such as Great 
Britain has just been throwing upon the scrap-heap, and the 
converted merchantmen that curb their fleetness to the lumber- 
ing train, and all the other elements of a mighty Russian fleet — 
on paper — are going up, to be smashed or beached or blown up 
or sunk. . . . 

Was ever wickedness in a ruler more foolish? Was ever 
folly more wicked than to insist upon the sacrifice? 

So interested was Mr. Pulitzer in seeing the Russian 
giant beaten and still beaten, until the Czar in good faith 
rendered up to the people the power, that The World 
predicted that peace was impossible, even as peace 



292 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

was being made. Calling the ^^ great Russia '^ of the 
Czar a ^^shown-up sham/' it said: '*To give back one inch 
of Chinese territory to Russian hands would be to expose 
millions to exploitation. To forego one penny of the 
ransom the bankers of the world are willing to provide 
Russia in her dilemma would leave her so much the more 
able to launch new war-ships, to raise new regiments, to 
forge new arms, to buy new knouts for Cossacks to lay 
on women students' backs . ' ' These were excellent reasons 
for crushing Russia; but there were also reasons why 
Japan was satisfied to let Russian democracy do its own 
crushing. 

The attitude of The World upon the Portsmouth peace 
was Mr. Pulitzer's personal attitude. He dictated many 
of the editorials printed at that time. It was one of the 
few occasions when his ardent sympathies led astray his 
keen perception of the trend of events. 

It was the contention of The World and of its founder 
that the expression and information of Public Opinion 
was one of the highest tasks in a republic. Mr. Pulitzer 
held that one great need of the country was a body of 
trained journalists, bound together by professional stand- 
ards of honor. He wished to see journalists subscribe to 
ethical rules as well defined as those of the legal and 
medical professions. He early evolved a plan for such 
training, and on the completion of twenty years of owner- 
ship of The World he offered Columbia University $1,000,- 
000 to establish a School of Journalism, with another 
$1,000,000 conditional upon its successful operation. 
V/hat he thought of the reasons which demanded such a 
school he told in The World of August 16, 1903. There 
v/ere one hundred schools for lawyers in the country; 
for journalists not one. It was the fashion in the news- 
paper world to say that ^^ journalism alone of all arts, 
sciences, trades, and professions in the world cannot be 
systematically taught, but must be picked up as a boy 



PUBLIC SERVICE 293 

picks up a knowledge of swimming when he is thrown 
into the water. Some boys drown." And yet . . . 

— every newspaper is a daily sufferer from the lack of 
training in its staff. The first question an editor asks of an 
apphcant for a position is, ''What has been your experience?" 
In other words: "Have you picked up some knowledge of your 
duties at the expense of some other newspaper, or must I waste 
my time teaching you the rudiments of the trade?" 

In former years a boy began the study of law by sweeping 
out a lawyer's ofiice, or of medicine by mixing pills for a country 
doctor. Instruction for newspaper work is still in the same 
stage. That law and medicine are now studied in professional 
schools, while a knowledge of newspaper work must be ''picked 
up" in an office, does not mean that journalism is any less 
capable than law or medicine of being sj^stematically taught, 
but merely that the methods of preparation for one profession 
have stood still, while those for the others have advanced. 

From these practical considerations The World pro- 
ceeded to the underlying ethical ones: 

The object of this School of Journalism, as described by its 
founder, is to make the newspaper profession a still nobler one — 
to raise its character and standing, to increase its power and 
prestige, through the better equipment of those who adopt it, 
and by attracting to it more and more men of the highest capac- 
ity and the loftiest ideals. 

Mr. Pulitzer in the last months of his life had begun 
work upon the organization of the School of Journalism. 
By his will an endowment upon substantially the terms 
quoted was released, and Columbia University opened the 
school in October, 1912. The new building v/hich is to 
house it is now completed, and an able corps of instructors, 
headed by Dr. Talcott Williams, well known both as a 
scholar and a journalist, as director, is actively at work. 

In the years when The World was supporting the 



294 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

administration of Governor Hughes in Albany it ener- 
getically fought the wasteful Catskill Aqueduct. 

The provision of water for New York had long been a 
problem. Federal law forbade going into New Jersey or 
Connecticut for a supply. Suffolk County, Long Island, 
had secured a state act forbidding the extension of the 
Brooklyn waterworks. Similar exclusion acts hemmed 
in the Croton waterworks on the North. These acts were 
passed partly because of a feeling in rural counties that 
the people needed the supply of their own streams, but 
more because of the machinations of private water 
companies, of which the '^ Great Chartered Ramapo" con- 
spiracy was the chief, to compel the city to buy their 
rights. Honest local objection to extension could have 
been met by making a plan under state authority for a 
metropolitan water district within which all the towns 
could have obtained supply from a common source, as 
Massachusetts has done. The engineers called into con- 
sultation said that a small plant for temporary supply 
could at a not exorbitant price be placed across the 
Hudson. From this suggestion, reasonable in the cir- 
cumstances, grew a great bi-partisan waterworks under- 
taking with ^^ millions in it" for speculators in land op- 
tions, for contractors and appraisers. 

The World was not slow to denounce this scheme. 
On October 14, 1905, it said: 

The city must pay $161,000,000 for the extension of its 
waterworks. The entire present system in all the boroughs is 
valued at only $125,000,000. Its present cost to the city — ^the 
bonds upon which the people pay interest — is only $77,000,000, 
the original debt having been reduced by instalments from the 
water rates. For the northward extension of its mains the city 
must more than triple the water debt upon all its plants. 

The fight continued for years. On January 25, 1908, 
The World printed as part of an editorial upon the squan- 



PUBLIC SERVICE 295 

dering of millions a photograph of the water rushing to 
waste over Croton dam. This article said: 

More water has been going over this spillway in the last two 
months than has flowed through the aqueducts. For several 
weeks a daily average of 969,000,000 gallons has gone to waste, 
or three times as much as daily flows through the aqueducts 
to New York City. 

This waste occurs not one year, but every year. 

Computing the value of water on the estimated cost of the 
Esopus scheme and the amount of water which it would supply, 
which gives an equivalent of $85 per million gallons, there is 
every day $82,365 flowing over the Croton dam. . . . 

Why should the city of New York be called upon to go 
eighty miles further away, to the foot of the Catskills, at a mini- 
mum cost of more than $161,000,000, when more water which 
the city already owns is now going to waste than flows through 
Esopus Creek? . . . 

Owing to the greater evaporation during the summer there 
will always be an annual danger of an August or September 
water famine unless the city provides more storage capacity. 
This can be done either by going to the Catskills, buying mil- 
lions of dollars' worth of land there and building an aqueduct 
one hundred and ten miles to New York; or it can be done by 
cleaning out the present reservoirs, by building new storage 
reservoirs in the Croton watershed, where the city already 
owns the land, and then laying more pipes from the Croton, 
thirty miles, instead of from the Catskills, one hundred and ten 
miles. 

The money saved would be enough to build four long inter- 
borough subways or eight short ones, to build all the new school- 
houses New York would require for ten years, and to equip 
the Fire Department with ten thousand lengths of hose that 
would not burst. 

If an engineer had been asked to say how New York 
should be provided with water he would have said, as 
The World did: first, stop waste and bring consumption 
nearer to a generous but reasonable allowance; then 



296 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

stretch the Croton Aqueduct gradually northward as 
needed, always under state authority, always supplying 
the towns along the line. If a practical politician were 
asked how to get more water he would have replied: 
'^Let the people use all the water they want. Get up a 
big scheme. ^^ This is what the Catskill Aqueduct plan 
did. Beginning at the wrong end of water extension — the 
end farthest from the city — a state commission irrespon- 
sible to the city planned the huge Ashokan reservoir 
before it was even shown how the water would be brought 
across the Hudson River. This problem was only solved 
after long experiment by an extremely deep and costly 
inverted siphon. 

The fight on the water folly was continued until the 
election of Mayor Gaynor. The city was then so far 
committed that it might have been almost as wasteful 
to drop the project as to carry it on. But The World had 
the satisfaction of seeing some of the waste of public 
money cut off by the appointment of a special Assistant 
Corporation Counsel to fight extravagant condemnation 
awards and excessive bills of appraisal commissioners. 

When serious charges were brought against Mr. Justice 
Hooker, of the New York Supreme Court, in 1905 The 
World waxed sarcastic over the plea of his friends that the 
acts complained of were performed before he became a 
judge, while he was in Congress; that these were ^'polit- 
ical practices" and did not touch his '' judicial integrity." 
''This view," it said, "seems to appeal to the Gas Senators, 
to the Sugar Senators, to the Corporation Senators. It is 
whispered by the loftily virtuous McCarren. It thunders 
in the eloquence of the ascetic and impeccable Grady." 

Yet while quick to denounce impropriety in individual 
judges The World has been a defender of the courts; has 
insisted upon better payment of judges; has opposed 
limitations to the writ of injunction, sought by people 
who do not always clearly see the meaning of their 



PUBLIC SERVICE 297 

endeavors; has fought the modern panacea of the judicial 
recall. In 1911 this doctrine became prominent in dis- 
cussion because of the struggle in Congress over the ad- 
mission of Arizona as a state, with a constitution includ- 
ing provision for the recall of judges. Said The World: 

The initiative and referendum is dubious enough itself, 
but when it is coupled with the recall of judges it means a 
revolution in our system of government. The checks and 
balances are overturned. The barriers against sudden out- 
bursts ^of popular passion are thrown down. The majority 
can do what it will. The minority has no rights which the 
majority is bound to respect. 

One of the last editorials which Mr. Pulitzer personally 
suggested was that of August 11, 1911, upon this subject. 
The whimsical references to Tammany judges and to 
Judge Archbald were contained in his memorandum. The 
article runs in part: 

The World is gratified by the report that President Taft is 
preparing a ringing veto message upon the Statehood bill 
just passed by Congress for the admission of Arizona and New 
Mexico. . . . 

The dangers of the recall are insidious. If we had it now 
in full force in State and Nation, The World would certainly 
wish to recall some of our boss-appointed Tammany judges. 
We should recall United States District Judge Archbald, who 
lets off with fines the worst Wire Trust offenders and releases 
the $1,400,000 smuggler who jumps his bail bond, while sending 
the $2,500 smuggler to jail. But individual exceptions do not 
disprove the general value of our well-tried system of govern- 
ment by checked and balanced powers. . . . 

These checks do not hamstring progress. They may some- 
times compel a salutary pause for reflection, discussion, the 
wiser second thought. Against a dictator we may never need 
them. They are as stanch to resist the firebrand and the 

demagogue. 
20 



298 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Judge Archbald was later placed under impeachment 
charges by the House of Representatives for causes other 
than those mentioned, and on January 13, 1913, was 
found guilty by the Senate. The World said of this 
verdict : 

The Institution of Impeachment is revived and invigorated 
by the proceeding against Robert W. Archbald, a Circuit 
Judge of the United States sitting in the Commerce Court, 
which has resulted in his conviction and removal from office. 

Impeachment is an institution because it is the method 
prescribed by the Constitution for the punishment of public 
officers who betray their trust or otherwise prove their unfitness. 
. . . That this institution has fallen into disfavor of late has 
been due wholly to negligence. . . . 

We now see that Robert W. Archbald never should have 
been made a Judge. He was a self-seeker on the bench. His 
relations with litigants in his court were scandalous. He 
accepted favors and gratuities. He was interested financially 
in matters that came before him. He exhibited a bias in favor 
of the rich and the powerful. He had no true appreciation of 
the position that he held or of his responsibilities to the people. 
He was a man misplaced. 

The vote of the Senate by which he loses his office and is 
forever debarred from holding another is the most impressive 
judgment rendered by that body for many a year. ... It 
is a death-blow to the demagogy of the judicial recall by 
popular uproar. 

Naturally The World looked with no more favor upon 
the gloss on the judicial recall which Colonel Roosevelt 
described as the ^^ recall of judicial decisions. '' This 
device would keep the electorate of every state — and as 
to federal decisions, the voters of all the states — in a 
perpetual stew of constitutional revision through the 
reversal of court decisions. The doctrine was annexed 
by Mr. Roosevelt in his speech before the Ohio Con- 
stitutional Convention on February 21, 1912. As he 



PUBLIC SERVICE 299 

expressed it, '^The decision of a state court on a consti- 
tutional question should be subject to revision by the 
people of the state '^ 

If any considerable number of the people feel that the decision is 
in defiance of justice, they should be given the right by petition to 
bring before the voters at some subsequent election, the question 
whether or not the Judge's interpretation of the Constitution is to 
be sustained. If it is sustained, well and good. If not, then the 
popular verdict is to be accepted as final, the decision is to be treated 
as reversed and the construction of the Constitution definitely decided 
— subject only to action by the Supreme Court of the United States. 

Said The World in comment : 

In other words, the majority is to enact the law^s through 
the initiative and referendum, and the majority is to interpret 
the laws through another initiative and referendum. If a 
State court undertakes to protect the rights of a minority, if 
a State court ventures to say that an act of the majority tran- 
scends the Constitution or transgresses against human rights 
and human liberties, the Judge may be recalled and the decision 
reversed by the majority which enacted the law. 

In these circumstances there would be no State Constitution 
except from day to day. No man w^ould have any stable 
guarantee that the majority would respect his rights and no 
man would know to-day w^hat his constitutional rights might 
be to-morrow. Every instrument that makes for stability of 
government would have been crippled or destroyed. State 
government would become a matter of mob-rule — a quiet, 
orderly mob, perhaps, but a mob that was lawless and unre- 
strained and responsible only to itself for its actions. 

The World has been no more zealous in praise of the 
extension of the principle of initiative and referendum, 
especially for the more populous states, where vast masses 
of people are herded in the large cities. It has been con- 
tent to see these cure-alls tried in the far West, where 
cities are smaller, the illiteracy percentage lower, and wrong 
decisions likely to be made upon a scale less disastrous. 



800 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

It was in the spirit of The World's platform of 1883 that 
on the first day of January, 1913, with its thirtieth anni- 
versary rapidly approaching, it put forth a programme of 
immediately practicable reforms. ^^An increase of more 
than 100 per cent, in the Socialist vote,'' it said, ^Hhe 
support that more than 4,000,000 citizens gave to the 
semi-Socialist Roosevelt candidacy is sufficient proof of 
a rapidly growing unrest that will no longer be satisfied 
with perfunctory reforms or with government that does 
not adjust itself to the changing needs of the general 
welfare." The programme follows: 

1. Tariff revision to reduce the cost of living, with unremitting 
opposition to all forms of governmental waste and extravagance. 

2. Enforcement of the criminal provisions of the Sherman 
Anti-Trust law against all deliberate offenders. 

3. Incorporation of the New York Stock Exchange, and 
such other legislation as may be necessary to safeguard legiti- 
mate business from the public evils of stock-gambling and 
stock-jobbing. 

4. An elastic currency system that is not subject to Wall 
Street control and manipulation. 

5. Strict regulation of child labor. 

6. An employers' liabihty law, by Constitutional amendment 
if necessary. 

7. Effective protection of women wage-earners. 

8. Direct nomination of candidates for State office, with a 
constitutional provision for the short ballot. 

9. Home rule for New York City, with complete municipal 
power over gambling, vice and liquor-selling, and a reorganiza- 
tion of the Police Department. 

10. The overthrow of Murphy, and the election of a capable 
anti-Tammany Mayor next fall. 

''This programme," said The World, ''is in harmony 
with True Democracy. The principles which it repre- 
sents are principles which The World has championed for 
nearly thirty years." 



XXI 



WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 

Payne-Aldrich Act Repeats the Story of the Wilson Bill — Mr. TajVs Dilemma 
— He Reluctantly Sides with the Tariff Stand-patters — Revolt in the House of 
Representatives, and Party Lines Broken — Failure of the Special Session — 
Arbitration Treaties Negotiated by Mr. Taft Beaten in the Senate — Canada 
Rejects Reciprocity Proffer — Two Fine Peace Measures thus Defeated — 
Mr. Taft, the Corporations and the Courts — Undeserved Humiliation of an 
Able President. 

The success or failure of Mr. Taft's administration 
rested on the tariff. 

The RepubHcan tariff plank of 1908 was reactionary. 
For the first time a political party promised not only well- 
paid employment to protected working-men but under- 
took to guarantee profits to protected capital. But the 
people had some reason to hope that the party's bite 
would prove less vicious than its bark. Many Eepubli- 
can leaders, like Senator DoUiver and Senator Cummins, 
were known to favor tariff reduction. Mr. Taft was com- 
mitted in word and in belief to honest ^^ revision down- 
ward." The sentiment of the country was so over- 
whelming that it was supposed no party could defy it. 

The passage of the Payne-Aldrich tariff repeated to 
some extent the story of the Wilson bill under the second 
administration of President Cleveland. The House pre- 
pared a measure which did not answer the expectations of 
the people but was an improvement upon existing law. 
The Senate oligarchy headed by Nelson W. Aldrich, then 
doing his last services for high protection, tore the bill 
in pieces, made its enormities more absurd, piled higher 



302 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

its burdens. Again, as with the Wilson bill, many 
members of Congress consented against their judgment 
to the passage of the Payne-Aldrich bill because they 
despaired of other action. Again a President reluctantly 
assented as a choice of evils. But in the manner of as- 
sent there was a difference. Mr. Cleveland refused to 
sign the mutilated Wilson bill. Mr. Taft was expected 
to refuse to sign the mutilated Payne bill. He disap- 
pointed expectations. 

In the end he signed. He admitted that it was ^'not a 
perfect Tariff bill or a complete compliance with the 
promises made, strictly interpreted. '^ He said that ^^in a 
number of cases'^ excessive tariff duties had not been 
reduced. He denounced the wool schedule as ^inde- 
fensible." He declared that ^4t should have been 
lowered," and that ^4t was not, because a combination of 
representatives from the manufacturing and wool-growing 
sections of the East and West had a majority in Congress 
that was overwhelming." But whatever good effect 
might have come from these reservations was thrown 
away later by excess of good nature. In a speech in the 
East the President praised Senator Aldrich, the chief 
architect of the abomination; in his Winona speech in the 
West he forgot how faulty he had found the act, and re- 
ferred to it before a hostile audience as on the whole 
^Hhe best tariff bill that the Republican party has ever 
passed and, therefore, the best tariff bill that has been 
passed at all." 

The Worldy protesting against the Payne-Aldrich bill 
at every step, did not abandon the contest. Taking the 
President at his word that he desired revision, it began 
on January 18, 1911, a series of editorials headed, ''Give 
Us a Special Session, Mr. Taft." The new House, 
elected in November, 1910, was Democratic by sixty-five 
votes — the reply of the people to the Payne-Aldrich act. 
Even Republicans in Congress might be ready under the 



WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 303 

chastening of such a smashing overturn from their ma- 
jority of fifty in the previous House to look upon tariff 
reform as inevitable. Said The World: 

By impressive majorities the people in November condemned 
privilege in laws and in taxation. In particular they passed 
judgment upon the taxes which under the manipulation of 
trusts have so oppressively increased the prices of food and 
clothing. 

This is not the first time that they have done this thing. 
A generation has come and gone since 1876, when tariff reform 
and retrenchment swept the country. The demand was re- 
peated insistently in 1884, in 1892 and in 1908. Both of the 
great parties have promised to undertake the work. Both 
have been tried. Both have failed. . . . 

If the fruits of recent political activity are to be gathered; 
if popular rule is to be spared another staggering blow; if 
fresh energy is not to be given to all the socialistic and revolu- 
tionary influences which even now are undermining representa- 
tive government, the President cannot fail to perceive that it 
is his highest duty to call the new Congress in extra session in 
March. . . . 

It happens occasionally in the affairs of nations that one 
man finds himself so placed as to be able by a word or the 
stroke of a pen to leave his impress for good forever upon his 
time. We believe that President Taft is thus situated to-day. 
Honor and fame hang on his initiative. 

The World was able to marshal such aid in its demand 
that Mr. Taft was constrained on March 5th to call a 
special session for April 4, 1911. The World hailed his 
message as ^'A Victory for the People'^: 

Making claim to nothing more than public service in revealing 
from day to day the drift of opinion, The World nevertheless 
feels that, through its efforts and those of other newspapers 
that ably seconded it, the President has been made acquainted 
with the people's views and strengthened in his disposition to 
give them proper effect. Champ Clark, who will be Speaker 



304 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

of the House when Congress convenes, calls The World^s battle 
for an extra session ''one of the most effective campaigns I 
have ever known a newspaper to make." For once plutocracy 
and privilege did not monopolize all attention at Washington. 
If this courageous act shall be followed at the proper time 
by a Presidential recommendation that the new Congress 
remove the extortionate taxes upon food and clothing, Mr. 
Taft will have the distinction of promoting a reform that 
cannot fail to give him lasting fame. 

Congress, by an alliance between Democrats and Pro- 
gressive Republicans, passed in the 1911 special session 
bills reducing duties upon cotton and woolen goods and the 
so-called Farmers^ Free List bill. Mr. Taft vetoed them 
all in turn on the ground that they made excessive cuts, 
and that they were not based upon exact knowledge de- 
rived from the Tariff Board^s inquiries. Since in his 
Chicago pledge of December 3, 1910, the President had 
said ^^We are bound to promote the prompt elimination of 
instances of injustice in the Tariff law, ^' there seemed little 
point in advising Congress to wait for the reports of a 
board which had no status as its informant but was 
merely empowered to advise the President upon maximum 
and minimum schedules. 

The World commented upon the vetoes in repeated 
articles headed, ^'Has Mr. Taft Committed Suicide?'^ 
Thus on August 23, 191 1 : 

With his veto of the Cotton bill Mr. Taft completed the 
slaughter of all the tariff-reform measures passed by Congress. 

No President could have been committed more unqualifiedly 
to the reduction of the wool and woolen duties than Mr. Taft 
was by his verbal and written pledges. His veto of the Wool 
bill is inexcusable. He had denounced the woolen schedule 
of the Payne- Aldrich tariff as '' indefensible." 

The Farmers' Free List bill was the logical complement of 
Canadian Reciprocity. It was designed to affect directly the 
cost of Uving and of supplies at a time when prices to consumers 



WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 305 

are again rising. Mr. Taft wrote his veto of the bill before 
Congress had passed it. 

It was on the cotton schedule in the Payne-Aldrich tariff 
that the Republican Senator Dolliver made his great fight and 
showed how the country was being imposed upon in the name 
of protection. The cotton duties were raised in the Tariff 
act of 1909, and by his veto of the Cotton bill Mr. Taft justifies 
the increase and prevents reduction. . . . 

With how much faith does Mr. Taft imagine the people, 
whose just hopes he has mocked, will listen to him when next 
he offers himself as their leader in a campaign for real tariff 
revision? 

The question was answered the following year. But 
before the verdict was rendered that put the Republican 
party third in popular strength at the polls indisputable 
proof was given that the country was against Mr. Taft. 
On April 4, 1912, the new House in regular session once 
more passed the Wool bill, 182 to 92; and the Metal 
Schedules bill, passed by both Houses and vetoed, was 
actually passed over the President's veto in the House 
by 173 to 83, with many absentees. The Senate, more 
closely divided, refused. ^' So ends,'' said The World, ^Hhe 
chief tariff-reform work of the session. Only a Republican 
President and an occasional Senator stand between the 
people and their relief from excessive taxation on the cost 
of living. The issue is clear. If the people want relief 
they know just how to vote to get it." 

If The World was compelled to criticize President Taft 
for his position upon the tariff issue it was his foremost 
supporter for world peace and arbitration, and for 
common-sense trade with Canada. 

Arbitration with Great Britain was no new word. Our 
first treaty in 1783 contained an arbitration clause. So 
did that of 1814, under whose provisions the Maine 
boundary question was arranged in 1828. The Oregon 
dispute and many differences upon the eternal fisheries 



306 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

question were peaceably settled before the Venezuela ex- 
plosion brought war near. Instead of shedding their best 
blood upon that occasion the countries established a 
friendly understanding. Lord Salisbury's bluntness at 
the outbreak of the Spanish-American war in calling 
Spain a decadent nation shocked diplomatists, but it 
showed that we had one firm friend in Europe. On the 
other side, when the German Emperor sent his sympa- 
thetic despatch to President Kruger during the Boer war, 
when there was scant liking for Great Britain upon the 
Continent and when in America Boer sympathizers were 
many, President Roosevelt kept the diplomatic attitude 
of our State Department scrupulously correct; and the 
war bonds issued by Sir Michael Hicks Beach were 
largely subscribed in Wall street. 

No public act of recent years gave The World more 
satisfaction than the signing in the East Room of the 
White House on August 3, 1911, of a treaty to insure per- 
petual peace between the two nations through an agree- 
ment to submit all differences to arbitral process. Said 
The World: 

At the same time a similar treaty between France and the 
United States will be signed in the Foreign Ministry in Paris. 
Both treaties have yet to be ratified, but it is scarcely con- 
ceivable that the hope of humanity will be dashed by any 
failure to take this final step. 

This, therefore, is a memorable day in the history of three 
great nations. To The World it brings the welcome fruit of 
ceaseless agitation for more than a quarter of a century to the 
end that wanton slaughter and destruction shall no longer be 
invoked in the settlement of international disputes. 

Ex-President Roosevelt did not make easier the path 
of peace by repeating that the ratification of the treaties 
by the Senate would amount to '^unctuous and odious 
hypocrisy." He leveled this charge of bad faith not only 



WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 307 

at the President, but at the Prime Ministers and Cabinets 
of Great Britain and France, who advocated the treaties. 

This splendid movement was finally blocked by the in- 
sistence of the Senate upon its right to be consulted afresh 
upon every question arising between the two countries — 
an insistence that seemed to clash with any proposal to 
settle questions automatically by general procedure. 

Said The World of this Bourbonism : 

No treaties are required to bring nations into an arbitration 
of questions which they are always mutually willing to arbitrate 
at the time of a dispute. What these treaties sought to do 
was to create an obligation to arbitrate a broad or justiciable 
class of questions which they might not be willing to arbitrate 
in the heat of controversy. So provision was made for joint 
high commissions of both parties to interpret disputed points 
and determine the arbitral character of issues arising. 

The Senate strikes out this vital provision. It adds others 
for the further emasculation of the proposed conventions. 
And then in solemn mockery it adopts the Lodge resolution 
which was intended to overcome the objections thus enforced 

It is not the Taft Administration which the Senate has 
injured. It is the Senate itself. 

It is not the President who has been betrayed, it is a great 
cause of civilization. 

Reciprocity fared as badly as the arbitration treaties, 
but in this matter it was not the United States but 
Canada that took an unprogressive attitude. 

Blaine and Dingley reciprocity had been accepted by 
the Republicans as attempts to quiet public displeasure 
at tariff exactions. They were not meant to be put into 
effect. With Mr. Taft in the Presidential chair working 
for a trade arrangement with Canada real reciprocity 
once more seemed possible. The World seconded him. 
The five-column editorial of April 3, 1911, and its briefer 
successors, entitled ^^ Hundreds of Facts in Favor of 
Reciprocity, '^ had much to do with strengthening the 



308 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

{Sentiment among Democrats which made possible the 
passage of legislation providing for a reciprocity arrange- 
ment. Of that triumph of common sense The World 
said on July 23, 1911: 

The measure passed the Republican House of Representa- 
tives February 14th by a vote of 221 to 92, but failed to secure 
Senate concurrence in the dying Congress. Foreseeing this 
The World in its articles headed ''Give Us an Extra Session, 
Mr. Taft/' named Reciprocity and lower taxation of neces- 
saries as the two great reasons for calling the new Congress 
together. . . . 

Early in the fray the wolves of Privilege donned their sheep- 
skin robes and went hot-foot to Washington to stop Reciprocity. 
. . . On the Canadian side there was the same alignment of 
abhorrent and hypocritical forces. But there it was chiefly 
the railroad man and not the manufacturer who donned 
the farmer's clothes to oppose friendly relations; he argued 
that there is more money in hauling goods a thousand 
miles from east to west than in letting them take the shorter 
path. . . . 

The "defenders of Empire '^ mixed mischievously in the 
struggle, and from London and Montreal came prophecies of 
annexation and British dismemberment. . . . The press of 
both countries refused to be buncoed. And talk of Empire 
failed, as ever5rthing had failed, to stem the tide. 

A tide, in truth, it is; a great, unyielding force and fact of 
nature that no Mrs. Partington with her broom can hold at 
bay. The glacial drift that ground and grooved its broad 
paths down the continent decreed ages ago that trade shall 
forever pass north and south over short ways in level valleys 
or on the friendly lakes rather than toil over heavy moun- 
tain grades for twice the distance east and west. . . . Some 
day we shall be wise enough to see that New York has 
no more need of a tariff against Canada than against Penn- 
sylvania. 

Between the United States and Canada there lies the longest 
"unscientific boundary" in the world; the longest line between 
nations not made or marked by natural obstacles. Yet soon 



WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 309 

we are to celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of unbroken 
peace along that boundary. We trust that the newer and 
closer relations which it now rests with her to conclude will 
forward and prosper Canada greatly in the swift industrial 
development for which she looks in the twentieth century. 

The battle was not won. The arrangement — in form 
it was not a treaty but an agreement for legislation, since 
our House of Representatives wished to preserve its right 
to initiate revenue laws — was repudiated by Canada after 
the Liberal party had been overthrown in a hot political 
campaign. 

The World also gratefully reviewed Mr. Taft's moderate 
position upon the proper relation to the federal government 
of the great corporations, and in the early summer of 
1909 thus summed up the case for Government regulation 
so far as it had gone: 

No corporation-tax law should be enacted which leaves the 
matter of publicity to the discretion of any Federal official, 
whether President or department clerk. This country has had 
enough personal government. 

The act of February 26, 1903, creating the Bureau of Corpora- 
tions, provided that the information obtained through its 
investigations, "or as much as the President may direct, shall 
be made public." What has been the result? Corporations 
have been investigated when it suited the whim of the President 
to have them investigated. Information has been made 
public when it suited his purposes to make it public. . . . 
There is lodged with the President of the United States the most 
powerful instrmnent of favoritism and oppression known to 
free government. 

Not only in his views upon corporation law did Presi- 
dent Taft use to public advantage his judicial training. 
His knowledge of the workings of the United States 
courts and of many of the men engaged in them enabled 
him to make judicial selections of the highest quality. 
This counted heavily in the fair words The World paid 



310 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

his administration as its rightful due on November 7, 1912, 
two days after he was so crushingly defeated at the polls : 

History will deal much more sympathetically with Mr. 
Taft than did the popular majority at the polls, and its verdict 
will not be long delayed. . . . 

As President Mr. Taft will leave a record of many triumphs 
and a single conspicuous and fatal blunder. He has been a 
constitutional magistrate, governing by law and not by caprice. 
He has given us the greatest Supreme Court since the days 
of Marshall and Story. He was the first President to enforce 
the criminal clauses of the Sherman law. He has urged the 
reform of judicial procedure. He has powerfully supported 
the cause of arbitration. He has worked for reciprocity. He 
has suppressed jingoism. He has promoted civil-service 
reform. He brought about the corporation tax. He has had 
regard for economy. 

Mr. Taft's stumbling-block has been the tariff. He signed 
the Payne-Aldrich bill which he should have vetoed, and he 
vetoed the non-partisan bills reducing the cost of living which 
he should have signed. No doubt he deserved punishment for 
these errors, but not at the hands of men calling themselves 
high-tariff Repubhcans, not at the hands of States like Pennsyl- 
vania, not at the hands of industrial oligarchies like Rhode Island. 

Not to Mr. Taft alone but to the better deeds of the 
great party he worthily represented The World again paid 
tribute of praise on March 3, 1913, the day before he was 
to yield office to President Wilson. In these words it 
described the "Rocks that Wrecked a Party '^ 

Sixteen years ago, with WilHam McKinley at its head, the 
Republican party was restored to power. It has been supreme 
in all departments of government during that time except 
for the last two years in the House of Representatives. It 
carried four national elections by tremendous pluralities. It 
polled in 1908 for William H. Taft the greatest^vote ever thrown 
for a Presidential candidate. It goes out of office to-morrow a 
third party, its candidate the choice of but two small States, 
its ranks broken, its leaders implacably hostile to each other. 



WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 311 

Yet this once invincible organization has a wonderful record 
of achievement which its successor must not belittle. During 
these sixteen years, with Democratic assistance it is true, the 
Republicans have established the gold standard, carried on 
the war with Spain, kept faith with Cuba, liberalized the 
government of the Philippines and Porto Rico, constructed the 
Panama Canal, given us postal savings banks, rural free delivery, 
the parcel post, new railroad-rate laws and enlightened labor 
laws, extended to some extent the principle of international 
arbitration, and, during the Administration now closing, 
enforced vigorously for the first time the civil and criminal 
law against trusts. 

To Mr. Taft personally belongs the credit of upholding in 
the face of many obstacles ideas of economy and of carrying 
to success in Congress his proposition in favor^of Canadian 
reciprocity. By the one he has given the people of all parties 
lessons of lasting value, we hope, on the subject of governmental 
extravagance. By the other he conducted a campaign of 
education against the folly and waste of tariff wars between 
neighboring nations which cannot fail to add much to public 
enlightenment. His most notable error, to which may be 
traced most of his own and his party's troubles, was his failure 
to veto the Pajoie-Aldrich bill and his later refusal to co-operate 
with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to revise the 
tariff downward, as he had promised. It was these blunders 
that split his party, gave free rein to Theodore Roosevelt's 
overmastering ambition and brought about his crushing defeat. 

Reduced to the fewest terms, therefore, the fate of the 
Republican party may be attributed to privilege, plutocracy, 
and personal government. These are the rocks on which it 
went to pieces. . . . 

Democrats may study this record with profit. They will 
find much to emulate and not a little to avoid. They also have 
their stand-patters and plutocrats. They also have their tm*- 
bulent leaders, eager for power and crazy for violence. The 
forces that have humiliated the Republicans in spite of much 
good service will unfailingly undo the Democrats, if given 
the upper hand. 



XXII 

THE LONG BATTLE FOR REFORM 

1880-1912 

Indiana in 1880 — Vice-President Arthur and "Soap^' — '^Frying the Fat^ 
\ in 1888 — "Floaters'' in "Blocks of Five" — Corruption Stirs the States to 
Action — The Silver Campaign Fund in 1896 — Mark Hanna and Hannaism 
— Trust Contributions in 1904 — Harriman's $260,000 and "Where do I 
Stand?" — The Standard Oil Contribution not Sent Back, as President Roose- 
velt Ordered — Ryan and Belmont's Vast Gifts — Cleaner Fighting in 1908 — 
Passage of Federal Corrupt Practices Acts. 

When the plot to buy the vote of Indiana in the Presi- 
dential campaign of 1880 was already hatched Joseph 
Pulitzer said on October 9th in a speech in Indianapolis: 

We want prosperity, but not at the expense of liberty. 
Poverty is not as great a danger to liberty as wealth, with its 
corrupting, demoralizing influences. Suppose all the influences 
I have just reviewed [banks, railroads and protected industries] 
were to take their hands off instead of supporting the Republican 
party, would it have a ghost of a chance of success? 

Let us have prosperity, but never at the expense of liberty, 
never at the expense of real self-government, and let us never 
have a government at Washington owing its retention to the 
power of the millionaires rather than to the will of the millions. 

The ''power of the millionaires'^ prevailed. When, 
three years later, Mr. Pulitzer assumed the editorship of 
The Worldj money control hung like a cloud over the 
country. The President of the United States, Garfield 
having been murdered, was the Chester A. Arthur who, 



THE BATTLE FOR REFORM 313 

when Vice-President-elect, had said at a banquet to S. W. 
Dorsey in New York City on February 11, 1881: 

Indiana was really, I suppose, a Democratic State. It had always 
been put down in the book as a State that might be carried by close 
and careful and perfect organization, and a great deal of — [here the 
speaker paused a moment while somebody interjected "soap." 
Laughter,] I see the reporters are here and, therefore, I will simply 
say that everybody showed a great deal of interest in the occasion 
and distributed tracts and political documents aU through the country. 
[Laughter.] . . . 

The gentlemen in New York who stood at the back of the national 
Committee responded so liberally to the demands of the committee 
that Mr. Dorsey, with his matchless skill, cool head and wonderful 
courage was able to save not merely Indiana, and through it the 
State of New York, but the nation. 

Two years later Dorsey was telling how the Indiana 
campaign of 1880 was managed. He had nearly five 
thousand aids in buying the state. ^'Each of these men 
reported what they could do . . . and how much it would 
take to influence people to a change of thought. We paid 
twenty dollars to some and as high as seventy-five dol- 
lars to others, but we took care that the three men from 
every township should know just what each got. There 
was no chance for 'nigging."' 

It was under such conditions that The World began its 
long fight thirty years ago against practices of corruption. 
It scouted the notion that 'Hhe great burning question 
of the day is that our clerks shall be able to pass examina- 
tions in fractions or geography.'' Electoral reform was 
the need. We must protect the ballot-box '' against the 
open violence of the ruffian and against the subtler vio- 
lence of the corruptionist." 

The arts of the briber failed to stay the election of 

Grover Cleveland in 1884, the young efforts of The World 

proving to be the decisive power. The corruptionists 

did not look for the defeat and were taken unawares. 

They made no such mistake in 1888. 
21 



314 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

On May 25, 1888, President James P. Foster of the 
Republican League sent out a letter saying that manu- 
facturers enriched by protection were laggard in con- 
tributing. He added a phrase that became famous: "If 
I had my way about it I would put the manufacturers of 
Pennsylvania under the fire and fry all the fat out of 
them.'' Foster's letter closed with the remark: "If you 
give us the means to win the victory we will do it. Are 
you willing?" .^ 

On October 24th Col. W. W. Dudley, Treasurer of 
the Republican National Committee, showed how the 
"means" were to be applied. He sent out this confiden- 
tial advice on the handling of purchased votes: "Divide 
the floaters into blocks of five and put a trusted man with 
necessary funds in charge of these five and make him re- 
sponsible that none get away and that all vote our ticket." 

The election was very close. Corruption decided it. 
Money elected Harrison, though Cleveland had a pliu-ality 
of the popular vote. Classic among American editorial 
articles was that which The World printed under the title 
of "Triumphant Plutocracy" on March 4, 1889, the day 
when Benjamin Harrison took seat in the White House 
to which the stained title of purchase admitted him: 

To-day at the capital of this Republic founded by a free 
people, Money seals and celebrates its triumph in the election. 
. . . What is the remedy? 

There can be no cure for these evils that does not proceed 
from an enroused and imperative public opinion. It is the 
dreadful inertia of indifference that must first be overcome. 

There is a work for the pulpit. Where sleep the thunders 
of righteous condemnation that rolled from the pulpit against 
human slavery? If the will of the people be the will of God, 
is not a crime against the suffrage a concern of religion? 

It is a work for the press. Public opinion will never be 
aroused against corruption by the politicians. They will not 
quarrel with their trade. . . . 



THE BATTLE FOR REFORM 315 

The State can apply a remedy by providing ballots and protecting 
the voters in secrecy in casting them, and by limiting the expenses 
of campaigns, and by requiring publicity to expenditures, as has 
been done with such good results in England. 



An official statement prepared for the Senate in 1908 
enumerated nineteen states and territories that then 
had laws for the publicity of election contributions or 
expenditures. These were, with the dates of enactment, 
New York, 1890; Colorado, 1891; Massachusetts, 1892; 
Alabama, California, and Virginia, 1893; Arizona, Con- 
necticut, and Minnesota, 1895; Nebraska and Wisconsin, 
1897; South Carolina, 1905; Pennsylvania, 1906; Iowa 
and Washington, 1907. In 1897, also, Florida, Kentucky, 
and Tennessee passed laws forbidding corporations to 
contribute; but without publicity acts these prohibitions 
were ineffective. 

With the passage of these earlier acts came Australian- 
ballot laws in many states, which made corruption hazar- 
dous by rendering it harder to be sure that the purchased 
voter '^stayed bought.'' But the nation still took no step 
to end corruption in federal elections. Meanwhile the 
scandal was recxu-rent at every general election. Not all 
the arts of bribery could prevent Cleveland's election in 
1892. But then came 1896 and the silver issue. 

Always since the war the heaviest purse had been on 
the side of the protected manufacturer in national elec- 
tions, though in local contests neither party excelled in 
unscrupulousness. The silver issue brought to Mr. 
Bryan's aid a competitive Democratic campaign fund 
given mainly by Marcus Daly, Senator Clarke, and other 
silver-mining magnates of the mountain states. Mark 
Hanna and his supporters, many of whom were more 
moved by fear of financial panic than by interest in 
tariffs, put into use the largest corruption fund yet gath- 
ered, none of which was wasted by the shrewd business 



316 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

man who conducted the McKinley campaign as if it bad 
been a factory or a mine. 

What was the total thus gathered? No one knows. 
No record was ever made pubhc. The outrage was this: 
that corruption was paid for in the dark; that the 
people whose rights and power were bought and sold 
could not even know who paid the price; that they could 
only infer how this price was repaid in turn. 

The situation was not greatly different in 1900; and so 
we come to 1904. A means of *^ frying the fat " which out- 
Fostered Foster^s wildest dreams had now been provided 
in the Bureau of Corporations, whose researches were 
conducted in secret and whose conclusions were disclosed 
only to the President. As late as 1911 its reports were 
refused even to an investigating committee of the House 
of Representatives. 

When George B. Cortelyou, who as Secretary of Com- 
merce and Labor had oversight of the Bureau of Cor- 
porations, was made Chairman of the Republican Nation- 
al Committee charged with the re-election of Theodore 
Roosevelt, '^financial leaders" knew what was expected. 
Early in the campaign and at frequent intervals in the 
course of that struggle The World asked the famous Ten 
Questions already quoted. No answer was ever vouch- 
safed by Mr. Roosevelt or by Mr. Cortelyou. Yet the 
questions were by degrees answered in the current news; 
in the revelations of disappointed conspirators for profit; 
in the inquisitions of courts; in state and national in- 
vestigations. 

Most of the records are destroyed, and no scrutiny of 
the funds in the original entries is possible. But we know 
that the Beef Trust contributed to the Roosevelt cam- 
paign fund, though we do not know the sum. 

That the Insurance Trust contributed was proved in the 
Hughes investigation. Without knowledge or consent 
of their policyholders the Mutual Life gave $50,000, the 



THE BATTLE FOR REFORM 317 

Equitable $50,000, and the New York Life $48,702.50 
through George W. Perkins. 

The Coal Trust and the Raihoad and Banking trusts 
were represented in funds gathered in New York and 
Philadelphia. 

The Steel Trust contributed not only in 1904 but in 
1906. The Harvester Trust, a child of the Steel Trust, 
was favored by the Roosevelt Administration. Permis- 
sion to the Steel Trust to absorb the Tennessee Coal and 
Iron Company in 1907, in violation of the anti-trust act, 
was avowed and defended by Mr. Roosevelt. 

There lingers unanswered from these revelations the 
question how much Mr. Roosevelt knew of corporation 
contributions when he denied Judge Parker ^s charges. 
That he knew of certain donations is admitted. Con- 
troversy is keenest about the fund raised by E.H. Harri- 
man and about the Standard Oil contributions. 

By the publication in The World on April 2, 1907, of 
a letter from Edward H. Harriman to Sydney Webster 
it became known that Mr. Harriman had raised $260,000 
in 1904 for Roosevelt, to be expended in New York State. 
Harriman understood that for this money Senator Depew 
was to be made an Ambassador, Frank Black was to be- 
come Senator in his stead and Harriman was to be con- 
sulted upon railroad recommendations in President 
Roosevelt's message. None of these arrangements was 
carried out, and Harriman asked Webster, '^ Where do I 
stand?" 

There is no proof beyond Harriman's word that Presi- 
dent Roosevelt asked Harriman to raise a fund. There 
is proof that Mr. Roosevelt asked Harriman to the White 
House, for upon his denying that fact Harriman produced 
the invitation. There is no proof that Treasurer Bliss 
received assiuances from Mr. Roosevelt as to the treat- 
ment he would accord Harriman. Probably he did not. 
That was made unnecessary by the code of politics. Long 



318 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

afterward Senator Piatt explained upon the witness-stand 
that campaign contributions established ^^a moral obliga- 
tion.'' 

Harriman raised the money. He wrote to Webster 
that his fund had 'Hurned fifty thousand votes" in New 
York. That he supposed he had an understanding with 
the President he gave proof by offering to return to the 
contributors of his special offering the money they had 
given, since the conditions had not been fulfilled. None 
of them cared to be reimbursed at Harriman's expense. 

The facts about the Standard Oil contributions came 
out more slowly. During the campaign of 1904 it was 
said that the company had contributed $100,000 to the 
Roosevelt fund. On October 25th S. C. T. Dodd, counsel 
of the company, stated that it had taken no part in 
politics or in securing the nomination of any candidate. 
He did not deny that money had been contributed. 
The next day Mr. Roosevelt wrote Mr. Cortelyou, refer- 
ring to the Standard Oil Company's reported gift of 
$100,000, and ordered that if any such sum had been con- 
tributed it should be sent back. To like effect he wrote 
again on October 27th and telegraphed two days later. 
The money had been received in September and spent. 
It was not sent back. 

Eight years after 1904 the leaders of the riven Re- 
publican party, denounced by Mr. Roosevelt as '^highway 
robbers," were not averse to revealing the secrets of the 
Roosevelt-Cortelyou fund. From the testimony of John 
D. Archbold, of the Standard Oil; of J. Pierpont Morgan; 
of George R. Sheldon, who succeeded Cornelius N. Bliss 
as Treasurer of the Republican National Committee; of 
Elmer Dover, an employee of the Committee, and others, 
many facts were elicited by the Clapp Senatorial Com- 
mittee. 

The Standard Oil contribution of 1904 was paid in cash, 
handed personally by Mr. Archbold to Treasurer Bliss. 



THE BATTLE FOR REFORM 319 

Beside this $100,000 Mr. Archbold gave $25,000 to 
Senator Penrose for use in Pennsylvania. Before giving 
the $100,000 Archbold insisted that Bliss should assure 
him that Mr. Roosevelt would '^appreciate" the help, and 
would not be radical in treating the tariff. Mr. Bliss 
afterward begged for $150,000 more, and when refused 
intimated that Archbold was making a mistake. Later, 
when the administration was prosecuting the Standard 
Oil Company, Archbold reproached Bliss, who replied 
that he had no influence with the President. 

Did Mr. Bliss let President Roosevelt know that 
Standard Oil had contributed the $100,000, and upon 
what terms? His friends would accept his unsupported 
word; but he is dead. Did Mr. Roosevelt upon October 
29th or upon November 4th, when he issued his denial 
of Judge Parker's charge, know that the money of the 
Standard Oil had not been sent back, could not be sent 
back, would not be sent back? In any case the contribu- 
tion supports Judge Parker's statement as to the acts of 
the trusts and the motives of those acts. 

Of Mr. Roosevelt's order that the Standard Oil money 
be returned the New York Press, which supported him for 
President in 1912, remarked: 

Roosevelt prepared his alibis as he went along so that when the 
time came he could show that he had ordered the return of any 
protection money he knew about, could prove that he was told the ^ 
money had been returned, and could demonstrate by the record and 
testimony that anybody who imagined he was buying Government 
favors from him with campaign contributions was " either a crook or 
a fool." 

What the Republican campaign fund of 1904 amounted 
to perhaps no one living knows. Chairman Cortelyou, 
examined by the Clapp Committee, thought it was less 
than two millions. If Treasurer Bliss thought a single 
trust should be assessed $250,000 this estimate seems low. 
Whatever the sum, it was in greater part given by a few 



320 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

men of wealth. Among the contributions revealed after 
eight years of denial and evasions, some of those of 
greatest consequence were: 

G. W. P. (Perkins) . $100,000 

G. W. P. (Perkins) 250,000 

George J. Gould 100,000 

E. H. Harriman 100,000 

G. S. MeUen, President 50,000 

C. H. Mackay 15,000 

E. T. Stotesbury 136,000 

B. T. Wainwright 101,700 

H. H. R. (Rogers) and J. D. R 100,000 

R. F. Rose, International Harvester .... 20,000 

G. W. P. (Perkins) 100,000 

J. P. Morgan & Co 100,000 

Chauncey M. Depew 100,000 

The Stotesbury contributions were for the Philadelphia 
Committee; the Wainwright contributions for the Pitts- 
burg Committee. George V. L. Meyer acted for the 
Boston Committee. James Stillman, of the National 
City Bank in New York— the ^^Standard Oil Bank"— 
gave several sums of $5,000 each. Depew's money was 
for the New York Central — and for his own menaced 
Senatorship. Whitelaw Reid, Jacob H. Schiff, James 
Speyer, J. F. Dryden, Andrew Carnegie, Roswell Miller, 
the Cuba Mail Steamship Company, William Nelson 
Cromwell, the American Can Company, Robert Bacon, 
and the Clarke Manufacturing Company were among the 
contributors. 

Finally, the Harriman fund, late in the campaign, 
called out additional sums from J. P. Morgan, James H. 
Hyde (who wished to be Ambassador to France), C. N. 
Bliss, James Stillman, E. H. Harriman, H. C. Frick, 
D. O. Mills, H. McK. Twombly, E. T. Stotesbury, G. W. 
Perkins, Jacob H. Schiff, and Isaac SeHgman. Mr. Frick 
stood ready, as Mr. Roosevelt testified, to make good any 



THE BATTLE FOR REFORM 321 

sum the Campaign Committee might lose by returning a 
Standard Oil contribution. There was no such loss. 

Stotesbiury, Bacon, and Perkins were partners of J. P. 
Morgan. Bacon afterward became Assistant Secretary of 
State and Ambassador to France. Meyer was rewarded 
with conspicuous office. 

Upon the Democratic side the situation, as it was dis- 
closed eight years later, was equally disheartening, 
though less of a public menace since smaller sums were 
being spent for an end impossible. August Belmont gave 
about $250,000 and Thomas F. Ryan as much as $450,000 
— the largest single contribution of the campaign — without 
hope of success, as he afterward testified, but with the 
purpose of ^^ holding the organization together. '' Of the 
Republican fund seventy-three and one-half per cent., 
according to Treasurer Sheldon, was contributed by 
corporations and trust interests. Fully as large a pro- 
portion of the Democratic fund must have been provided 
by a few wealthy men. How far Judge Parker was aware 
of the financial operations of his Campaign Committee 
has not been revealed. 

It was only after 1904 that The World's long fight for 
honest elections began to show results of the first im- 
portance. The real beginning of any corrupt-practice 
legislation in this country which was anything more than 
a mere formal setting forth of public aspiration for honest 
elections unsupported by penalties for corruption was 
contained in the insurance code of the state of New York, 
forced by The World's philippics in 1906 from a reluctant 
governor and legislature. 

Then for the first time in American history a state for- 
bade any contribution whatever by corporations for polit- 
ical purposes. The New York law also enforces publicity 
of campaign funds and expenditures. New Jersey passed 
in 1911, under Governor Wilson^s urging, an act, the Geran 
law, that is almost a model, providing for publicity, limit- 



322 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

ing the amounts that candidates may spend, and forbid- 
ding campaign contributions. Other states are rapidly 
falHng into line. 

The shocking insurance disclosures were also the be- 
ginning of forward action in Washington. They gave 
force to the sentiment which had long been growing there 
that the nation itself should not lag behind its states in 
frowning upon corruption; and in the early days of 1907 
Senator Culberson^s proposed amendment to the railway- 
rate bill, providing that no corporation engaged in inter- 
state commerce should contribute to any federal cam- 
paign fund, and the Tillman bill, forbidding national 
banks to make such gifts, were combined in the law of 
January 26th, which forbids all corporations to con- 
tribute. 

The campaign of 1908 was an improvement in decency 
upon all its predecessors since the Civil War. Said The 
World on October 10th: 

For the first time in the history of American politics, the 
sources of a National Committee's campaign fund have been 
voluntarily disclosed. This action marks the beginning of a 
new era. . . . When George R. Sheldon was made Treasurer 
of the Republican National Committee he declared that in- 
asmuch as he was a resident of this State the publicity laws 
of New York would apply to the Republican campaign fund. 
That act requires a sworn statement of expenditures as well 
as of receipts. Herman Ridder having been elected Treasurer 
of the Democratic Committee to succeed Governor Haskell, the 
publicity laws of New York apply to him as well as to Mr. 
Sheldon. 

So publicity in a national election was practically forced 
upon the campaign treasurers of both parties by the laws 
of a single state. 

The Rucker bill, passed by Congress in August, 1911, 
was the next step. This provides for publicity of cam- 



THE BATTLE FOR REFORM 323 

paign funds and limits the amounts that may be spent in 
Congressional elections. It was during its energetic ad- 
vocacy of the bill that The World received from ex-Judge 
Parker this letter, which it printed with comment : 

Put Them in Jail 
To THE Editor of The World. 

Your editorial of yesterday served to remind me of the masterful 
campaign you have waged for years against the corrupt use of money 
at the polls. 

Others, at the outset in sympathy with the movement, either grew 
weary after a time, or else jumped, as does the trout at the angler's 
fly, at the new ''isms" dangled before the people that the truth might 
not be seen, and understood. 

But The World never faltered, and for this effective service as to the 
most important of all latter-day public questions the people owe you 
a debt that can never be measured. 

Yet I venture to ask you to continue your work until the act of 
Jan. 26, 1907, be so amended as to provide imprisonment for the 
officers of corporations devoting corporate funds to pohtical ends. 

The act imposes a fine. 

The punishment was not intended to hinder contributions. 

It was intended to deceive the general public, not the corporation 
bargainer with government for the right to levy toll upon the people. 
To him the act was to, and does, mean: ''Contribute if you wish, for 
the only risk you run is a possible fine, which you can take out of the 
corporate treasury as easily as you took out the contribution." 

Very sincerely yours, 

Alton B. Parker. 
RosEMOUNT, EsoPUS-ON-THE-HuDSON, August 15, 1911. 

Judge Parker is right. The law should provide that the 
''corporation bargainer with government for the right to levy 
toll upon the people" must go to jail; and to that end the true 
friends of honest elections will continue their efforts. 

Nor need they despair of soon achieving success, seeing how 
great an advance has been made, in the seven years since the 
crowning debauchery of 1904, in repressing the purchase of 
elections. 

Little need be said of campaign funds in 1912. They 
were of modest size compared with those furnished during 



324 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

so many campaigns. The combined expenditures of the 
three parties were probably not far from the sum spent 
by the RepubHcans alone in 1904. 

The Democrats had the largest provision, 91,000 per- 
sons contributing $1,100,000. There was a substantial 
residue not spent. 

The Progressive fund amounted to $790,682, as ac- 
counted for under the laws of New York, including money 
given by the National Committee to the State Committee 
in that state, but not funds in other states; and here 
again was a surplus. Something like $700,000 was also 
used before the Republican national convention, as 
testified to before the Clapp Committee, in the vain 
attempt to secure the nomination of Mr. Roosevelt on 
the Republican ticket. George W. Perkins gave $122,- 
500 to the earlier fund, $130,000 to the later, and $10,000 
for New York; a total of $262,500. Frank A. Munsey 
gave $118,000 to the pre-convention fund, $112,250 to 
the campaign fund proper, and $10,000 in New York; a 
total of $240,250. Dan Hanna gave $177,000 to the pre- 
convention fund. 

The Republican National Committee reported the re- 
ceipt of $904,828, and again a "^surplus. The largest con- 
tributor was President Taft^s brother, Charles P. Taft, 
who gave $150,000. J. P. Morgan & Co. and Andrew 
Carnegie put in $25,000 each, and other contributions 
seem to have been scaled down to modest figures. 

The laws governing the use of money in campaigns 
are still far from perfect. There are loopholes; evasion 
is possible; enforcement has not always teeth; penalties 
for infraction are often slight. But a revolutionary ad- 
vance has been made in thirty years. The World aiding it 
by a fight that has been continuous from the day of its 
birth. 



XXIII 

AGAIN MR. ROOSEVELT 

1881-1911 

The Early Career of a Great Politician — Mr. Roosevelt and the Edmunds 
Campaign — He Leaves the Independents to Support Blaine — His Troubled 
Presidency — Congress and the Secret Service Moneys — The Roosevelt 
Corporation Policy — "TAe World^' Nominates Him for Senator — His 
Trip to Africa — Rushing to Defeat in the Stimson Campaign — Governor 
Dix's Vari-colored Administration — The Birth of the Progressive Move- 
ment — Mr. Roosevelt Takes Possession. 

In the autumn of 1881 a slender young man of nervous 
temperament wearing eye-glasses and a moustache with 
side-whiskers was elected to the New York Assembly as 
a reforming I^epublican. He quickly became promi- 
nent and was intrusted with the chairmanship of a 
legislative committee to investigate conditions in New 
York City. 

In 1884 Theodore Roosevelt appeared as one of the 
delegates-at-large at the National Convention, where he 
was active in urging Senator Edmunds of Vermont for 
the Presidency. Blaine was chosen. A conference of 
Edmunds men was called in New York, and such leaders 
as Carl Schurz and George William Curtis repudiated 
Blaine and Logan as unfit, and resolved that ^'it is our 
conviction that the country will be better served by oppos- 
ing these nominations than by supporting them.^' Mr. 
Roosevelt, after some hesitation, said: ^^I intend to vote 
the Republican ticket. ... I did my best and got beaten, 
and I propose to stand by the result.^' 



326 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Upon Mr. Roosevelt's public activities up to this point 
The World in the summer of 1884 made sarcastic com- 
ment: 

Young Mr. Roosevelt started well in the Legislature as a 
municipal reformer. When he was turning up the soil of our 
city government he came across outrageous irregularities in 
the Taxes and Assessment Department and blackmail offenses 
in the Surrogate's office. As the President of the Tax Depart- 
ment and the Surrogate are Republicans young Mr. Roosevelt 
quickly threw in the dirt again and turned in another direc- 
tion.— JwZ^/ ^4, 1884. 

The first necessary step toward reform in this city was to 
remove Johnny O'Brien, whom the Tribune had denounced as 
the embodiment of the most corrupt machine methods, from 
the head of the Election Bureau. . . . We found that Roosevelt 
sold out to O'Brien [and] accepted from his machine an election 
as delegate-at-large to Chicago. 

Then we denounced young Mr. Roosevelt as a reform fraud 
and a Jack-in-the-box politician who disappears whenever his 
boss applies a gentle pressure to his aspiring head. . . . What 
an exhibition he makes of his reform professions at the present 
moment, when he signifies his intention to seek by his vote to 
elect as President of the United States a man he admits to be 
venal and corrupt, and for whom he blushes to speak! — August 
26, 1884. 

The World did not lack further opportunities to com- 
ment upon the activities of the young reformer who 
turned politician in that early crisis of his career. It 
opposed him for Mayor in the Henry George campaign of 
1886. It denounced his headstrong course as Police 
Commissioner, which discredited reform by assailing 
personal liberty. It sustained the cause he represented 
in the Civil Service Commission. It opposed his election 
as Governor in 1898, but without enthusiasm for Augustus 
Van Wyck, whom Tammany stupidity set up to check his 
eager onrush. As Governor it found him often aiding its 



AGAIN MR. ROOSEVELT 327 

policies for reform; sometimes, as in the franchise-tax 
legislation, muddUng good causes. It praised him in 
1905 for his courage in standing ready, like Cleveland, to 
suppress with federal troops labor riots affecting inter- 
state commerce, the mails, and national property. It 
commended his administration for dissolving the Northern 
Securities merger, and heartily praised him for his energy 
in ending the coal-strike menace. It admired his cour- 
age in undertaking to make peace between Russia and 
Japan. It supported him when attacked for having 
Booker Washington, a negro, at luncheon in the White 
House. It scored his injustice in dismissing a body of 
negro troops for the misdeeds of an unidentified few at 
Brownsville, Texas. 

With Mr. Roosevelt's slow progress as President in 
punishing crimes of high finance The World was soon 
dissatisfied. In December, 1907, it was prodding him 
for failing to prosecute, as he had promised, ^^ crimes of 
cunning no less than crimes of violence." Said The 
World: 

It was nearly four years ago that Judson Harmon and Freder- 
ick N. Judson, in their report to the President on the Santa Fe 
rebate cases, informed Mr. Roosevelt that guilt is always 
personal. The same idea is presented in Woodrow Wilson's 
plea that the best way to discourage wealthy malefactors is to 
send the one responsible man to jail. . . . Yet in spite of all 
Mr. Roosevelt's burning words about crimes of cunning, great 
railroad wreckers and malefactors of great wealth, in no case 
has the one responsible man been sent to jail; in no case has the 
one responsible man been criminally prosecuted; in no case has 
the one responsible man even been indicted. . . . Was Punch 
right, after all, when it cartooned President Roosevelt as a rock- 
ing-horse crusader, brave, dashing and dauntless, but never 
getting anywhere? 

Earlier in the year The World had commented upon 
^Hhe most far-reaching claim of federal power ever 



32S THE STORY OF A PAGE 

advanced by any President of the United States" — Presi- 
dent Roosevelt's Decoration Day address in Indianapolis, 
in which he claimed federal control of carriers, ^^ whether 
their business is or is not interstate,'' under the power to 
establish post-roads. Of this dream of centralization 
The World ssiid: 

If this contention be admitted, no city can control its own 
public streets. These thoroughfares are used by mail-carriers 
and mail-wagons and the power of regulation rests in the 
Congress of the United States. No State can control its own 
wagon-roads if these roads are used by rural-free-delivery 
carriers. No city can regulate its own traction companies. 
These companies in New York City and in many other places 
carry United States mail. . . . 

Mr. Root, in his speech before the Pennsylvania Society 
warned the States that they could preserve their authority 
only by a vigorous exercise of their powers for the general 
public good. But there is no salvation by good works in Mr. 
Roosevelt's scheme of theology. Under the clause empowering 
Congress to establish post-roads the States were predestined 
to be extinguished. 

Of Mr. Roosevelt's Provincetown speech calling like 
the daughters of the horse-leech for more law, and ever 
more law. The World said, under the heading ''More 
Muddling of Government": 

The grave defect of Mr. Roosevelt's corporation policy 
is that he has no policy. He has advocated a constitutional 
amendment to enable the Government to suppress the trusts; 
he has advocated publicity as the first essential step in con- 
trolling these corporations and secured the agencies of such 
publicity; he has promised the strictest enforcement of the 
Sherman law; he has explained why "good" trusts should 
not be prosecuted at all; he has advocated Federal licenses 
for all corporations engaged in interstate commerce; he has 
undertaken to have receivers appointed for corporations that 
violate the law; he has advanced the astounding doctrine that 



AGAIN MR. ROOSEVELT 329 

under the post-roads clause Congress can control any common 
carrier that transports the mails; he has demanded and ob- 
tained the power through a commission to fix railway rates; 
he has declared that no criminal, high or low, whom the Govern- 
ment could convict would escape punishment; he has explained 
why the criminal prosecution of these criminals is generally 
inexpedient — and now he has arrived at Federal incorporation 
as the sovereign remedy. 

Mr. Roosevelt advances one new scheme after another until 
the business mind is bewildered in the mazes of Presidential 
experimentation. 

No part of Mr. Roosevelt's programme was more bitter- 
ly denounced than his attempt to use secret-service funds 
to compel Congress to support his policies. He sought 
to persuade the country that, owing to the machinations 
of Congressmen who "did not themselves wish to be in- 
vestigated by Secret Service men," the machinery of 
justice had been crippled, and that Congress, when it 
questioned an appropriation for secret-service purposes, 
was legislating to protect "criminals.'' 

Congress answered the President by passing the 
Perkins resolution. This declared that the Secret Service 
paragraph of his message was "unjustified and without 
basis in fact" and a "breach of the privileges" of Con- 
gress. Of this famous dispute The World said: 

Other Presidents have quarreled with Congress; but no 
other President ever attacked in a message the integrity of 
the entire law-making branch of the Government, or insinuated 
that ''the Congressmen" were practically the accomplices of 
criminals. 

Yet not for all its criticisms of the President was The 
World willing to contemplate the loss to public life of his 
talent and energy. On November 9, 1908, it advocated 
his election as United States Senator from New York 
to succeed Piatt. "Better," says an Eastern proverb, 

22 



330 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

''a wise enemy than a foolish friend." The advice ten- 
dered in these passages would, if accepted, have provided 
Mr. Roosevelt a far better route of re-entry into public life 
than the Stimson debacle of 1910: 

Theodore Roosevelt should succeed Thomas C. Piatt as 
United States Senator from New York. 

The World would infinitely prefer a Democrat of proved 
ability, integrity and character, but no Democrat can be elected. 
The Legislature is Republican; Piatt's successor will be a 
Republican, and the choice narrows to the Republican best 
qualified to represent the State of New York. That man, in 
our opinion, is Theodore Roosevelt. . . . 

Mr. Roosevelt's faults would be far less conspicuous in the 
Senate than in the White House. In the United States Senate 
no man is supreme. However energetic, however impulsive, 
however ambitious, he must conform to the traditions of the 
greatest deliberative body in the world. . . . 

Any man who has been President of the United States has 
gained an experience that is invaluable to the nation and 
should not be lost. 

The World^s farewell to Mr. Roosevelt as President was 
a full-page editorial on March 4, 1909, entitled '^ Seven 
Years of Demagogy and Denunciation." For a little 
there was a breathing-space for Mr. Roosevelt; politics 
was dropped for the production of some extremely 
readable articles upon his hunting-trip in Africa. The 
condition of American parties during his absence — the 
lull before the reawakened storm — ^was described in De- 
cember, 1909, in a remarkable article called ^'The Twilight 
of the Gods"; 

Democrats and Republicans alike are divided. In the 
House, Speaker Cannon faces an insurgent revolt; but Champ 
Clark, the Opposition leader, cannot command the unanimous 
support of the Democratic Representatives, Senator Culberson 
has resigned the thankless task of leading the Democratic 
minority in the Senate, and Senator Aldrich finds his own 



AGAIN MR. ROOSEVELT 331 

leadership sharply challenged by radical Senators from the 
West. Republican Senators and Representatives can be found 
who are no less radical than Mr. Bryan and Mr. Clark, and 
there are Democratic Senators and Representatives who are no 
less conservative than Mr. Aldrich and Mr. Cannon. 

Party demoralization in Congress is no accident. It is the 
inevitable result of a political discontent that is struggling to 
find a voice. Mr. Bryan expressed it in a way; but neither of 
them ever got to the heart of things. . . . 

As The World sees it, to find the genesis of this present-day 
discontent we must go back nearly twenty years, when public 
opinion, inflamed by the aggressions of great combinations of 
capital, compelled the enactment of the Sherman Anti-Trust 
law. But no law is self-enforcing. Least of all one that strikes 
at privilege and plutocracy. Before sufficient pressure could 
be brought to bear upon the Executive to compel a vigorous 
enforcement of the Anti-Trust act the silver question had 
become acute. Attention was diverted from the trusts, and 
the Sherman law was temporarily forgotten in the struggle to 
save the nation from the consequences of free silver. 

What the country most needs politically is a new alignment 
of parties, in order that they may again represent the principles 
and ideals of their members; but this is too much to hope for 
at present. There are thousands of Republicans who are really 
Democrats, and thousands of Democrats who are really Repub- 
licans; but they are held to their ancient party allegiance by 
habit, sentiment, tradition and prejudice. Instead of seeking 
a party that better expresses their views, they are seeking to 
mold their own party over to their changing principles, and 
the growing spirit of independence makes the issues only the 
more confusing. . . . 

The old battle-cries fall on deaf ears. The old standards arouse 
little enthusiasm. The old prophecies exdte no reverence. A 
new order is seeking to establish itself politically. This is the 
twilight of the gods, 

Mr. Roosevelt's return to America on June 18, 1910, was 
like the triumph of a Roman general. He was welcomed 
by a huge outpouring of the people. 



3S2 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

It was expected that the ex-President would remain 
for a time quiet. He may have intended to do so, but his 
restless temperament forbade him to stay inactive at the 
edge of a fight. He had surrounded Governor Hughes's 
path with difficulties, had driven him to the Supreme 
Court, out of the road to the Presidency, and thus had 
paved the way for the Republican schism of 1912 which 
the progressive Hughes might have avoided. A new 
campaign for Governor of New York was near. The 
hunter plunged into the fray by his discovery in Osawa- 
tomie, Kansas, August 31, of the ^'New Nationahsm.'' 
Showing a belated concern for the dangers of corruption 
in campaign contributions by corporations, he put for- 
ward as a remedy the control of corporations by the 
government, and fathered such a policy of federal power 
as to disconcert the disciples of Hamilton scarcely less 
than those of Jefferson. 

As the state convention in New York drew near it 
became apparent that the hunter had bagged the party. 
He overturned the machine plan, by which Vice-President 
Sherman was to have been permanent chairman of the 
convention, and took command. The old-line leaders, 
who by helping Roosevelt to crowd Hughes off the 
course had shown themselves less skilful politicians than 
he, stood back to ^' watch Teddy run things.'^ Their 
allegiance in the campaign that followed was little more 
than nominal. 

For Governor Mr. Roosevelt selected Henry L. Stimson. 

Mr. Stimson was the former United States Attorney 
for the Southern District of New York. He was an 
able lawyer, an effective speaker; he was not known to 
the voters, but Mr. Roosevelt overlooked this weakness. 

The platform was timid. Mr. Roosevelt was willing 
to make radical speeches in Kansas, but in drawing up a 
pohcy for New York, Progressivism roared gently. The 
Taft administration, which two years later the Roosevei- 



AGAIN MR. ROOSEVELT 333 

tians were to assail so furiously, was ^'enthusiastically 
indorsed.'^ The Payne- Aldrich tariff was praised. The 
platform was silent on the income tax, which Presidents 
Taft and Roosevelt had both urged; on the workmen's 
compensation law; on initiative and referendum and the 
direct election of Senators. As for direct-primary action, 
the rock on which the Hughes administration had split, 
it called for the extension of the signature-registration 
law to primaries, but otherwise went into no detail. 

So much for leader and fighting-call. For tactics 
Mr. Roosevelt reverted to the old Parsons-Odell plan of 
joining forces with Mr. Hearst. 

In 1906 Elihu Root had denounced Mr. Hearst with 
President Roosevelt's authority as the instigator of the 
murder of McKinley. Mr. Roosevelt had held respon- 
sible for that crime ''those who on the stump and in the 
public press appeal to the dark and evil spirits of malice 
and greed, envy and sullen hatred." Mr. Root, repeating 
these words in a speech at Utica at the end of the Hughes- 
Hearst campaign, had added: "I say, by the President's 
authority, that in penning these words, with the horror 
of President McKinley's murder fresh before him, he had 
Mr. Hearst specifically in mind. And I say, by his 
authority, that what he thought of Mr. Hearst then he 
thinks of Mr. Hearst now." That unflattering opinion was 
soon modified, for on November 16, 1908, Mr. Hearst was 
a caller upon President Roosevelt at the White House. On 
September 7,1910, he published in his newspaper this appeal : 

Come home to New York, Mr. Roosevelt, and honestly take the 
war-path against the bosses. We Independents are whetting our 
tomahawks for the fray. There is no jealousy in our ranks. We do 
not care who leads, if he only leads aright. 

We do not care who gains the glory as long as the people gain the 
victory. 

Drive the Repubhcan bosses out of the Repubhcan party, Mr. 
Roosevelt, and if one of them deserts to the Democratic party fifty 
thousand Independents will take his place, 



334 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

On the following day Mr. Roosevelt replied: "I am 
going back to New York State, as mentioned by Mr. 
Hearst, to fight the bosses. I will welcome the support of 
any man who wishes to aid in that fight.'' 

An interview with Mr. Hearst was cabled from Paris 
on September 26th in which he said: "Certainly I would 
support Mr. Roosevelt upon a properly progressive plat- 
form, but frankly I would much prefer to support some 
other man in whose sincerity and stability I have more 
confidence." 

Support was given indirectly by the nomination of a 
third ticket. Mr. Roosevelt had the satisfaction of 
conducting the fight of the first Republican candidate for 
Governor of New York defeated in sixteen years. The 
Hearst nominee, John J. Hopper, received 48,470 votes, 
59 fewer than the Socialist. Stimson was beaten by 
67,401. In the following year, while he thought it still 
possible to prevent a Republican schism, the amiable 
Mr. Taft made him Secretary of War. 

The Democratic candidate, John A. Dix, was sup- 
ported by The World on the sole ground that his election 
was necessary to prevent a third term of Rooseveltism 
more violent and unrestrained than ever before. How- 
ever dissatisfied it may later have been with his adminis- 
tration, it never expressed regret for its choice in 1910. 
Mr. Dix suffered greatly in comparison with Governor 
Hughes. Where Hughes had fought the bosses and often 
beaten them to their knees. Governor Dix compromised. 
He purchased support for his measures by the approval 
of boss-drawn bills, like the Levy election law to prevent 
independent voting, which was riddled by the courts. 
He bought confirmation of his personal nominees by 
throwing "patronage'' to Tammany. Where he followed 
his own choice Governor Dix as a rule made good selec- 
tions of public officials; he forced the ratification of the 
income-tax amendment by New York; and upon the 



AGAIN MR. ROOSEVELT 335 

financial side his administration made a record of pro- 
gressive legislation. On the other hand, corruption and 
waste crept swiftly into the public service of the state, 
so that at the end of Governor Dix's term The World was 
obliged to disclose demoralization in the Good Roads ser- 
vice, the chief interest of political bosses; in the Archi- 
tect's office, and in other departments of state activity. 

A fight broke out after Mr. Dix's inauguration upon the 
election of a Senator; Boss Murphy, fulfilling a pre- 
election promise, swinging his support to William F. 
Sheehan. With all the power it possessed The World de- 
nounced this cynical bargain to deliver a great office to 
the ex-boss of Buffalo, and it heartened the Democratic 
'insurgents'' in the Legislature to resist. Here aid was 
given by the late Edward F. Shepard, of Brooklyn. 
Before becoming openly a candidate for Senator Mr. 
Shepard consulted The World and offered to leave with it 
the decision whether he should make a public statement. 
He was advised to do so; he might be beaten, but even 
in defeat he would serve his state. Mr. Shepard took this 
view of his duty; was defeated; died soon afterward — 
he was of delicate frame and health — and was followed to 
the grave by public sorrow and appreciation. He made 
many good fights, filled no high office, but served his 
city and his state. 

The Senatorial deadlock was ended by the election of 
Supreme Court Justice James A. O'Gorman, an admirable 
choice with which The World was well satisfied. 

The defeat inflicted upon Mr. Roosevelt in 1910 ex- 
tended far beyond New York: 

Theodore Roosevelt and the New Nationalism have gone 
down to their Waterloo. Mr. Roosevelt will not be the Repub- 
lican candidate for President in 1912. 

When The World made Mr. Roosevelt the issue in this cam- 
paign he gaily accepted the challenge and spread himself 
over the political map, from the Rocky Mountains to the 



336 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Atlantic Ocean. He elbowed Mr. Taft and the Republican 
Administration aside while he conducted a sky-rocket campaign 
for a third term and his own political apotheosis. Mr. Roose- 
velt has been speaking for many weeks. Now the people have 
spoken, and the people have repudiated Rooseveltism. 

He is beaten decisively in his own State, where his personally 
conducted candidate is overwhelmed, and the Republicans have 
lost the Governorship for the first time in sixteen years. 

He is beaten in his own Congress district. 

He is beaten in his home district in his own town, which 
was carried by John A. Dix. 

He is beaten in Massachusetts, where he viciously assailed 
Mr. Foss, and the people elected Mr. Foss Governor. 

He is beaten in Connecticut, where he viciously assailed 
Judge Baldwin, and the people elected Judge Baldwin Governor. 

He is beaten in Ohio, where he viciously assailed Judson 
Harmon, and the people have re-elected Judson Harmon 
Governor. 

He is beaten in New Jersey, where Woodrow Wilson made an 
Old Nationalism Democratic campaign against the vagaries of 
the New Nationalism. 

He is beaten in Indiana, where he campaigned for Senator 
Beveridge on a fake tariff reform of false pretenses. 

He is beaten in Iowa, where a Republican majority of 74,000 
is nearly if not completely wiped out. 

And wherever Mr. Roosevelt has been beaten, he has been 
beaten by Republican votes. 

Republican victory would have been a Roosevelt victory. 
Republican defeat is a Roosevelt defeat. When the Republican 
Convention in 1912 looks for this mysterious Moses whom 
Elihu Root has so eloquently described, it will not look in the 
direction of Oyster Bay. 

Such a defeat would have disheartened most men. One 
thing that endeared Mr. Roosevelt to his countrymen was 
that he did not know when he was whipped. The cam- 
paign of 1912 was begun on the field of the rout of 1910. 
The fulsome praise in the New York platform of 1910 for 
the failing administration of Mr. Taft could not be for- 



AGAIN MR. ROOSEVELT 337 

gotten in a day; but mounting discontent soon helped 
Mr. Roosevelt to attack what he had lauded. The great 
Progressive movement in Congress, which developed such 
logical leaders as Senators La FoUette, Cummins, and 
Bristow, was left for a time to plow and harrow and sow 
the Colonel's field. But in the spring of 1912 it became 
apparent that, foiled by Stimson's defeat of gaining the 
Republican nomination, Mr. Roosevelt was holding in 
reserve a schismatic candidacy. 

Senator La Follette has told how he was encouraged by 
the Roosevelt group to believe that he had a clear road for 
a Progressive nomination. Why should he not believe 
his road was clear? Had not Mr. Roosevelt, after his re- 
election in 1904, on November 8th made this pledge with 
the people? 

On the 4th of March next I shall have served three and a half 
years, and this three and a half years constitute my first term. The 
wise custom which limits the President to two terms regards the 
substance and not the form, and under no circumstances will I he a 
candidate jor, or accept, another nomination. 

Had not Mr. Roosevelt more than three years later, on 
December 11, 1907, amplified the pledge? 

I have not changed and shall not change that decision thus 
announced. 

Mr. La Follette further tells how, later, the impatient 
Nimrod thrust him aside and took possession of his un- 
dertaking. The election of 1911 aided the plan. Though 
not an important contest, it showed the people still 
dissatisfied. New York reverted to the Republican side 
in disgust at Tammany; California went overwhelmingly 
Republican but with progressive intent; New Jersey re- 
turned a narrow Republican legislature through the 
treachery of Democratic bosses to Gov. Woodrow Wilson. 
But Indiana remained Democratic ; Ohio continued to sup- 



338 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

port Governor Harmon with a Democratic legislature; 
Massachusetts again elected the Democratic Governor 
Foss, and Maine for the first time in years chose a Demo- 
cratic Governor and legislature, and later a Democratic 
Senator. 

Gloomy indeed was the situation of the Republicans. 
The country was in revolt. The enemy had invaded the 
citadels of privilege. President Taft's administration was 
a failure; the failure of a man respected and beloved, 
but still in public esteem a failure. Progressivism was 
demanding its rights in a West which could no longer be 
deceived or cajoled. 

Add to this the portent of Rooseveltism upon the 
horizon, and the party horoscope, as 1911 drew to its 
close, was heavy with warnings of fate. 



XXIV 



^^ ARMAGEDDON" 



1912 



The "Seven Little Governors" Invite Mr. Roosevelt into Action — He Throws 
His Hat into the Ring — Attempts to Grasp the Republican Nomination 
and is Defeated — "The World" Demands the Nomination of Woodrow 
Wilson — Mr. Bryants Great Services at the Baltimore Convention — Crush- 
ing Defeat of Boss Murphy and the Reactionaries — Nomination of William 
Sulzer for Governor — Philosophy of Politics — Barren Results of the Bull 
Moose Campaign — "A New Birth of Freedom." 

The debut of Theodore Roosevelt as a candidate for a 
third Presidential term was skilfully stage-managed. 

On the 10th of February, 1912, seven Governors ad- 
dressed to him a letter of invitation. They stated that 
they believed after investigation that '^ a large majority of 
the Republican voters of the country favor your nomina- 
tion, and a large majority of the people favor your elec- 
tion, as the next President of the United States. '^ The 
seven Governors were Stubbs, of Kansas; Carey, of 
Wyoming; Glasscock, of West Virginia; Aldrich, of 
Nebraska; Osborn, of Michigan; Bass, of New Hamp- 
shire, and Hadley, of Missouri. 

Mr. Roosevelt did not at once reply. On February 
24th, however, he ''threw his hat into the ring" with the 
statement, ''I will accept the nomination for President if 
it is tendered to me," and began an open campaign for the 
Republican nomination. He secured 450 delegates to the 
national convention who would stand by him to the end, 
and a collection of 78 contested cases, involving 254 seats, 



340 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

which were desperately fought in the national committee 
before the Chicago convention met. 

Mr. R-oosevelt reached Chicago, amid scenes of 
frenzied enthusiasm, on Sunday preceding the convention. 
On Monday night he made the famous speech that bore 
the message, ^^If they ask for the sword they shall have 
it," and closed with the lilting line, '* We stand at Armaged- 
don and we battle for the Lord.'' 

The Roosevelt delegates were excited; IlHnois was a 
Roosevelt state; Roosevelt enthusiasm in the galleries was 
certain. Many observers predicted bloodshed, but the 
convention did not prove more tumultuous than is the 
rule with these vast, unwieldy gatherings. The test 
came quickly in the vote for permanent chairman. 
The Roosevelt forces supported Governor McGovern of 
Wisconsin, a La FoUette delegate, who received 502 votes; 
Senator Root, the Taft champion, was elected by 558 
votes, and handled the gathering with extraordinary 
parhamentary skill. Governor Hadley of Missouri was 
the able floor leader of the Roosevelt hosts. Mr. Roose- 
velt's adherents cast 510 votes upon the motion to admit 
the contesting delegations, and this showed their greatest 
strength. Before the nomination was made they had 
agreed to withdraw, and in the selection of a nominee 
only 107 participated by voting for their candidate. 
La FoUette received 41 votes; Cummins, of Iowa, 17. 
Six delegates were absent, 344 did not vote — ^making 
with the 107 a total Progressive strength of 451. Mr. 
Taft had 561 votes, but three more than on the first 
test, so closely held was the battle-field. 

That night was held in Orchestra Hall one of the most 
excited political meetings ever known in this country. 
Mr. Roosevelt's speech was inferior to his Armaged- 
don effort ; but what it lacked in phrasing was sup- 
plied, to an audience worked up almost to frenzy, 
by his impassioned energy of utterance. The move- 



^^ARMAGEDDON^^ 341 

ment to nominate a third ticket was definitely under 
way. 

The World, meanwhile, had sm-veyed the battle-scene 
with impartial philosophy. With the collapse of the La 
FoUette movement it welcomed the nomination of Mr. 
Roosevelt by the Repubhcans, which then seemed not 
unlikely: ^^The issues involved in his political activities 
might as well be settled now as at any other time. If he 
is not nominated in 1912 he will be a candidate for the 
nomination in 1916. That will mean four years more of 
Rooseveltian agitation, Rooseveltian denunciation, Roose- 
veltian clamor and Rooseveltian intrigue. And to what 
good? Why not meet this Roosevelt question now and 
dispose of it once for aU?" Nevertheless it soon predicted 
that Mr. Roosevelt would not be nominated by the 
Republicans. On March 16th it gave the reason: 

American politics has witnessed nothing more extraordinary 
than Mr. Roosevelt's loss of strength since the announcement 
of his candidacy. 

Up to that time he was a formidable figure, occupying a 
position of impregnable strength. He was professedly fighting 
for a principle. His opposition to Mr. Taft was ostensibly the 
opposition of thousands of other Republicans who believed the 
Taft Administration had not been sufficiently progressive. 

Had Mr. Roosevelt been able to maintain this attitude it 
is by no means certain that he would not have been nominated. 
Mr. Taft was growing steadily weaker. He himself admitted 
the possibility of his defeat at the polls in November. . . . 

The turn came when Mr. Roosevelt announced his candidacy. 
He was no longer disinterested. The mask had been removed. 
The so-called Progressive movement was revealed as a political 
conspiracy against Mr. Taft. . . . Mr. Roosevelt may have a 
large following in the Chicago Convention. Populistic States 
like Oklahoma will send delegations that are instructed for 
him, but the Roosevelt men will be in a minority. 

The prophecy was fulfilled, but rather by the strength 
of the Republican machine than by the voice of the rank 



342 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

and file. Had there been Presidential direct primaries 
throughout the country Mr. Roosevelt would almost 
certainly have been nominated. His strength in the 
Chicago convention came from states where Presidential 
primaries were held. His opponents came from states 
where the old convention plan was still in force and the 
conspicuous leaders were in control. The smaller leaders 
of the party quite generally favored Roosevelt because 
with him they felt they had a gambler's chance of electing 
town and county officials, while with Taft nominated 
and a divided party their cause in many localities was 
hopeless. A majority of the rank and file also probably 
preferred Roosevelt. 

Hard upon the heels of the Republican convention 
followed that of the Democrats in Baltimore. 

Six years earlier Mr. Pulitzer in a memorandum for 
his editors had compared Dr. Woodrow Wilson, president 
of Princeton, to Dr. Eliot of Harvard as "a political 
thinker of the very first rank; far above ordinary poli- 
ticians and more of the statesmanlike cast of thought 
than the President of the United States; perhaps because 
he is not a politician nor a partisan but an independent 
thinker''; and had said: ^^This is the type of man the 
Democrats should nominate, ridiculous though the sug- 
gestion will probably appear." The suggestion began 
to appear less ridiculous in 1910 when Dr. Wilson was 
elected Governor of New Jersey after a masterly campaign 
and proceeded to give that state an admirable adminis- 
tration. 

Yet Governor Wilson was by no means the leading 
candidate in the number of his supporting delegates at 
Baltimore. He was, on the other hand, the candidate 
most obnoxious to certain financial interests that formed 
something like a conspiracy to prevent his nomination or 
that of any man too conspicuously progressive to suit 
their purposes. The first candidate of these men was 



''ARMAGEDDON'' 343 

Governor Harraon of Ohio, an admirable executive. 
Governor Harmon has suffered some injustice in popular 
estimation from this support. He was worthy of a 
better following. His age and the fact that he represented 
the Cleveland Democracy, against which the old feeling 
still existed among the Bryan element, handicapped him 
further. The second choice of the reactionaries was 
Representative Oscar Underwood, chairman of the Ways 
and Means Committee of the House. Mr. Underwood 
had the public confidence, but his unbidden friends did 
not help his chances. There was also a general feeling 
that he could be most useful to the party and the country 
in Congress. 

When it became apparent that neither Harmon nor 
Underwood could win the conspirators shifted their 
strength to Speaker Champ Clark, who had a large popular 
following, and whose colmnn of pledged delegates, with 
the help of his new allies, put him in the lead. 

Support of Clark in such conditions was impossible to 
The World. Of that it had given fair warning. On May 
30th it nailed Governor Wilson's name to the masthead 
in an article entitled, ''For President — Woodrow Wilson": 

Like a twentieth-century Genghis Khan, Theodore Roose- 
velt, with his horde of prairie Populists and Wall-street 
Socialists, is sweeping down upon the Republican National 
Convention. Mr. Taft seems as powerless to check him as 
the degenerate Romans were to check the descent of the Goths 
and the Vandals. The historic party of Lincoln and Seward 
and Chase and Sumner and Conkling and Chandler and Blaine 
and Garfield and Harrison and Sherman and McKinley is 
apparently in the death-throes. This is the twilight of the 
gods, and the Democratic party must rise not only to its 
opportunity but to its responsibility. 

How can it do its duty better than to match sanity against 
lunacy; statesmanship against demagogy; the historian against 
the Rough Rider; the educator of public opinion against the 



344 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

debaucher of public opinion; the first term against the third 
term; the tariff -reformer against the stand-patter; the man 
who would prosecute trust magnates against the man who 
protects trust magnates; the man with clean hands against 
the man who draws his campaign fund from Wall Street; 
the supporter of constitutional government against the cham- 
pion of personal government; law against lawlessness; American- 
ism against Mexicanism; the Republic against the dictatorship? 
Who better represents these issues than Woodrow Wilson? 

The ^' conservatives" in the Baltimore convention 
planned to show their strength by making Alton B. 
Parker the temporary chairman. The World pointed 
out to Mr. Bryan, who as a delegate from Nebraska was to 
be a potent figure in the convention, his opportunity to use 
his great power for the party. The handicap under 
which he labored was ^Hhe growing cloud of suspicion 
that he is secretly planning his own nomination.'' Boss 
Murphy and the Wall Street Democracy were trying to 
force Parker upon the convention on the plea that if 
Bryan was not beaten he would seize the nomination for 
himself. By taking his "great patriotic opportunity'' — 
by announcing that he was not a candidate — Bryan could 
crush the Wall Street-Tanunany coalition, force the adop- 
tion of "a platform that squares with the principles and 
convictions of the rank and file of the party," secure the 
nomination of Wilson or another as satisfactory, and ' ^ make 
himself the architect of a Democratic victory in November 
that will pave the way for twenty years of Democratic 
administration in Washington." 

Of the candidates only Woodrow Wilson was bold 
enough to protest in advance against the selection of 
Mr. Parker as temporary chairman, as an unwise yielding 
to men whose domination of the party would invite if not 
insure defeat. When on June 25th the convention met, 
Mr. Parker was seated by a vote of 579. Mr. Bryan, 
who ably fought against Parker and consented to stand 



^^ARMAGEDDON'' 345 

for the post instead of his nominee, Senator Kern, received 
510 votes. The test was a triumph for the conservatives, 
but a costly one. 

On Thursday night, June 27th, Mr. Bryan introduced 
his famous resolution beginning: ^'We hereby declare 
ourselves opposed to the nomination of any candidate 
for President who is the representative or under any 
obligation to J. Pierpont Morgan, Thomas F. Ryan, 
August Belmont, or any other of the privilege-hunting 
or favor-seeking class,'* and demanding the withdrawal 
of delegates representing such interests. 

The second part of the resolution was resented on 
behalf of Virginia, under whose banner Thomas F. Ryan 
had appeared as a delegate, and was withdrawn. The 
resolution as quoted was then passed, Charles F. Murphy, 
of New York, casting 90 votes for it, although August 
Belmont was one of the Tammany delegates. The 
reactionaries smiled at having, as they thought, taken 
the sting out of the resolution by supporting it. 

On Friday balloting began, with Mr. Clark in the lead. 
He was supported by his own state, by Mr. Bryan, and 
by many others of the progressive wing. Late that night, 
on the tenth ballot. Murphy swung the solid New York 
column of 90 votes from Harmon to Clark. Clark's 
strength rose to 556, more than half the convention, two- 
thirds of which was necessary to a nomination. Wilson's 
vote was 354J^. But the Tammany accession was far 
from causing a stampede; Clark's vote fell on the next 
ballot to 554, while Wilson's continued rising. This 
showed what the convention thought of the stencil-plate 
delegates from New York who had sat, wincing but dumb, 
under Mr. Byran's invective. 

Balloting continued on Saturday with a gradual loss to 
Clark and a steady gain to Wilson; and when on the 
forty-third vote the convention adjourned over Sunday 
Wilson was well in the lead. 

23 



346 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

Monday morning The World published, in the most 
conspicuous manner its editorial typography has ever 
assumed, a strong article headed ^^ Wilson — No Com- 
promise with Ryan and Murphy": 

Compromise was possible until the Ryan-Murphy con- 
spiracy was fully revealed and the Tammany boss carried 
out the terms of his bargain with the Clark managers by throw- 
ing New York's ninety votes to Champ Clark. Compromise 
was possible until Mr. Bryan was compelled by the inexorable 
logic of events to repudiate Champ Clark's candidacy and vote 
for Woodrow Wilson. Compromise was possible until it be- 
came apparent to every intelligent man that the Ryan-Murphy- 
Belmont-Hearst coalition had set out to strangle progressive 
Democracy, destroy Mr. Bryan politically and prevent the 
nomination of Woodrow Wilson at any cost. 

Compromise is no longer possible. There can be no Demo- 
cratic harmony, there can be no Democratic unity, there can 
be no Democratic integrity, until the convention overwhelms 
this shameful alliance between corrupt finance and corrupt 
politics. . . . 

The Ryan-Murphy coalition will now accept anybody 
except Wilson. If the convention yields to the plea for a com- 
promise candidate, it will be a Ryan-Murphy victory. 

A thousand Roosevelt orators will be thundering from the 
stump their denunciation of Democracy's surrender to Wall 
Street. 

The issue that is vital to Roosevelt's campaign for a third 
term will come to his hand ready-made. The Democratic 
party might as well retire from the contest as to go before the 
country with the Ryan-Murphy taint upon its ticket. . . . 

As Stephen A. Douglas once said, "There can be no neutrals 
in this war — only patriots or traitors." 

When the convention reassembled Wilson received the 
nomination on the forty-sixth ballot. 

The World predicted Governor Wilson's election. He 
would be 'Hhe first President of the United States in a 
generation to go into office owing favors tonobody except 



''ARMAGEDDON^' 347 

the American people. No political boss brought about 
his nomination. No political machine carried his can- 
didacy to victory. No coterie of Wall Street financiers 
provided the money to finance his campaign. The 
American people have set out to regain possession of 
their government, and Woodrow Wilson was nominated 
for President because he embodies that issue." The 
share which Mr. Bryan had taken in the struggle was 
gratefully acknowledged: 

Whether in all things wisely, whether in all things unselfishly, ' 
whether in all things loyally devoted to Gov. Wilson, it was his 
courage, his clearness of vision, his knowledge of the forces 
with which he had to contend, and his splendid mental and 
physical endurance that gained the day. . . . 

It has seemed at times that Mr. Bryan's purpose was not 
to strengthen Democracy, but to strengthen himself. That 
suspicion attached to him at Baltimore and it delayed his 
triumph. Indeed, the glory of his achievement is doubled by 
the fact that it was brought about at last as much by foes 
convinced as by friends who never doubted. 

In this record of a poHtical success that has few parallels, 
we find but a single flaw. If at any stage, Mr. Bryan had 
emphatically put aside personal ambition, the outcome would 
never have been in doubt and his disinterestedness would have 
made him speedily invincible. This he did not do, and we 
shall always regret it. It was an opportunity lost. 

Politicians will long debate whether Mr. Bryan had 
well-defined hopes of securing the nomination himself. 
If in a year when any popular Democrat was sure of 
election the leader who had borne the banner of Democracy 
in three defeats now wished to bear it to victory, it was 
not strange. But the fact remains that Governor Wil- 
son's nomination was made possible by the brilliant battle 
which Mr. Bryan waged in the Baltimore convention 
against the bosses of the party and their financial allies. 

As in 1892, The World's chief service to Democracy 



348 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

twenty years later was rendered before the convention, 
in forcing forward the strongest candidate, and the result 
fully vindicated its judgment. 

The campaign was put upon a high plane by Governor 
Wilson. No one had been more bold than he showed 
himself in addressing popular audiences in such terms as 
one might use before small groups of educated men; 
and his method was successful. Mr. Roosevelt special- 
ized in denunciations of the men who had ^^ stolen 'Hhe 
Republican nomination; but many of his supporters 
were of the social-worker class — agents of public charities, 
settlement residents and those in sympathy with them — 
who welcomed the opportunity to discuss sanitation, 
education, working-men's insurance, and other topics 
more fitting to state than national campaigns. With 
much of their doctrine Governor Wilson was in accord; 
he had done much for it in New Jersey; but he argued 
that workers for ^'social justice '^ would get more help 
from a practical party in Constitutional ways than from 
a rump of a party of privilege, itself committed to the 
governmental license of Big Business. 

But the great issue was the tariff. The Republicans 
complained that the Democratic platform denied the 
Constitutional right to levy duties, save for revenue; in 
this position the Bull Moose party, as the Progressives 
came to be called, were equally emphatic. As no tariff 
had ever been passed except as a revenue measure, and 
as Governor Wilson was pledged to respect the interests 
of the community in restraint of violent measures, the 
point was not important. 

Of the speech of acceptance by Governor Wilson The 
World said: 

The same vicious system that is responsible for tariff extortion 
is largely responsible for the high cost of living. ''The high 
cost of living is arranged by private understanding," as Gov. 
Wilson truly says. The same vicious system is responsible 



^^ARMAGEDDON'' 349 

for the trusts and for all the evils that they represent. *'The 
trusts do not belong to the period of infant industries/' On 
the contrary, 'Hhey belong to a very recent and sophisticated 
age when men knew what they wanted and knew how to get 
it by the favor of Government/' 

The same vicious system is responsible for the so-called 
money power; for "the vast confederacies'' of banks and rail- 
roads and express companies and insurance companies and 
manufacturing companies, all banded together by small and 
closely related boards of directors. "There is nothing illegal 
about these confederacies" which are now "part of our prob- 
lem." They have never wanted anything from the Government 
except immunity from interference and they know how to get 
that immunity. 

Because of the identification of Govenor Dix's adminis- 
tration more and more closely with Tammany Hall the 
campaign for the Democratic nomination for Governor 
of New York attracted wide attention. 

The chief candidate, besides Governor Dix, was William 
Sulzer, a Representative in Congress from a strong 
Democratic district in New York City. Though Mr. 
Sulzer was a Tammany man, his personal strength in his 
district had enabled him to show occasional independence 
of the Boss, a circumstance that added greatly to his 
popularity in the rural districts of the state. 

The World had no candidate ; it was determined that the 
Boss should not be permitted to force the nomination of 
Governor Dix, thereby handicapping Governor Wilson and 
at the same time menacing New York State with the con- 
tinuance of a nerveless and boss-controlled administration. 

Therefore it gave prompt warning: 

The World will not support a Murphy candidate for Governor. 

The World will not support John A. Dix for re-election. 

The World will not support a candidate for Governor who 
owes his nomination, directly or indirectly, to the sinister power 
of the Tammany Boss. 



350 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

We are unalterably opposed to Murphy's domination of the 
Democratic party in this State and we intend to make that 
opposition as effective as possible. Murphy must keep his 
unclean hands off the Democratic State Convention. 

The nomination by the Republicans of Job Hedges as an 
unbossed candidate who ^'won without the help of the 
old guard/' and the wild enthusiasm in the Progressive 
state convention which forced the candidacy of Oscar 
Straus, led The World to predict that *' Unless the [Demo- 
cratic] State Convention nominates a candidate for 
Governor who is publicly known to be an anti-Murphy 
Democrat, the next Governor of New York will be 
Oscar S. Straus or Job E. Hedges. Either of them would 
make a very good Governor.'' 

Murphy played in convention a part less brazen than 
in Baltimore. He kept his hands off; he himself voted 
for no candidate; in these conditions Mr. Sulzer won 
with comparative ease. The World supported him with 
a warning: 

Mr. Sulzer was the undoubted choice of the rank and file of 
the Democratic party. He would have been nominated for 
Governor in a direct primary, and the delegates who named 
him at Syracuse only carried out the wishes of their constituents. 
That much must be admitted by friend and foe alike. 

Whether the delegates acted wisely or unwisely will depend 
upon Mr. Sulzer's own attitude toward his candidacy. He 
must first make it plain that he is a free man who recognizes 
no obligation to any boss or any machine. . . . He must make 
it plain that as Governor he, and not Charles F. Murphy, will 
be the leader of the Democratic party in this State. 

The country remained calm during the campaign, since 
of the outcome there could be no doubt. The attack 
upon Mr. Roosevelt in Milwaukee by the unbalanced 
Schrank gave the contest its thrilling moment; but he 
was not seriously injured; and as Governor Wilson out of 



'^ARMAGEDDON'' 351 

courtesy canceled his engagements for speeches while 
Mr. Roosevelt was recovering, argument by the candi- 
dates ended a month before election. 

The occasion was therefore favorable for editorial 
articles in a field which The World has always favored, 
the deeper philosophy of politics. Such was its long 
study of October 21st entitled *' Monopoly is Slavery." 

The men who thought that the Government of the United 
States could safely legalize and regulate slavery were greater 
statesmen than now exist in any country of the world. They 
were undoubtedly the wisest, the most disinterested, the most 
inspired body of statesmen known to the whole history of human 
civilization. 

Yet slavery was the rock upon which they split the Republic. 
The attempt to legalize and regulate slavery was the one stu- 
pendous blunder of the Constitution, which led to civil war 
and the most momentous conflict of modern history. . . . 

The vital truth that Woodrow Wilson is now seeking to im- 
press upon the minds of the American people is that monopoly 
is slavery. It is not only economic and industrial slavery 
but it is political slavery. The Government does not regulate 
monopoly and cannot regulate monopoly. It is monopoly that 
regulates the Government. 

The Republican party has no clear and definite policy of 
dealing with this great evil. The Progressive party purposes 
to regulate and control monopoly. But the Democratic party, 
under the leadership of Woodrow Wilson, purposes to extermi- 
nate monopoly. 

This country wants no favored monopolistic class established 
and maintained by law. It wants no great mass of citizens 
condemned forever to be hewers of wood and drawers of water 
because a legalized monopoly has shut the door of opportunity 
in their faces. 

On the Saturday before election The World contained a 
full-page editorial called '^ Democracy — or Despotism," 
which drew the contrast between two systems of govern- 



352 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

ment, the one based on Roman, the other on EngHsh 
law, and argued that men of our Repubhc are better suited 
to thrive under the Enghsh type of administration. 
This was The World's final comment upon the vision of 
paternal coddling raised before the American voter by 
Theodore Roosevelt's ^'New Nationalism," with its 
lengthening vista of government control of business: 

Under Roman law the citizen exists for the benefit of the 
state. Under English law the state exists for the benefit of 
the citizen. Under Roman law the affairs of the people are 
an active concern of government. Under English law the 
affairs of government are an active concern of the people. 
Roman law is an institution of imperialism. English law is 
an institution of democracy. 

The best modern example of government under Roman law 
is Prussia. The best modern example of government under 
English law is the United States. These two conflicting sys- 
tems cannot be permanently reconciled. . . . 

Under the Prussian form of government all the activities 
of the citizens are regulated by an all-wise and all-powerful 
bureaucracy. At every step of his life a highly centralized 
Government tells him what he may do, what he must do and 
what he must not do. By the agency of its tariffs and its 
subsidies the Government decides what industries it will dis- 
courage. By means of its cartels it opens or closes the gates 
of opportunity at will. Production and consumption are alike 
regulated by its decrees. Competition or monopoly hinges 
upon the word of the bureaucrat. The Government guarantees 
the manufacturer his profit and it tells the consumer what he 
shall contribute toward the enrichment of industry. Its 
peasants are supposed to remain peasants and till the soil 
dutifully for the landlord classes that own the estates. Its 
workmen are supposed to remain workmen and assist the 
employer in conquering the markets of the world. . . . 

As exemplified in the case of Prussia, government under 
Roman law is necessarily a government under which individual 
opportunity is inevitably circumscribed and limited. It is a 
government which rules a nation founded on the military 



''ARMAGEDDON'' 353 

principle — a few officers and a great army of privates who can 
never rise from the ranks. It is a government capable of 
development into a wonderfully organized machine which per- 
forms its functions with amazing precision. It is a government 
under which a whole people may be molded to suit the pur- 
poses of those in authority. It is a government under which 
one directing mind can shape the destinies of an army; but it 
is a government which has never been tolerated by a free people, 
and which no people could tolerate and remain free. 

In the name of '^social justice" it is now proposed to erect 
a replica of Prussian institutions upon American soil. It is 
proposed that a government of bureaucrats shall regulate the 
activities of ninety-five million people. It is proposed to make 
the National Government a priceless prize for Plutocracy to 
take possession of and administer for its own profit. It is 
proposed to turn a great Republic into the theater of a class 
war, and every election into a battle for wages, dividends and 
spoils. ... At the head of this system is to be a President 
of the United States clothed with greater power than any other 
living man except the Czar of Russia, and he is to hold the 
liberties, the welfare and the progress of the nation in the hollow 
of his hand. 

We know from long experience with the tariff what happens 
when great aggregations of capital are at the mercy of govern- 
ment. They step in and control the government. For more 
than a generation the protected industries have been united 
in a common conspiracy to name Presidents, to name Repre- 
sentatives in Congress and to name United States Senators. For 
more than a generation this conspiracy has been successful. . . . 

The National Government has not regulated the tariff; the 
tariff has regulated the National Government, and to-day the 
tariff-taxing industries, under threat of panic, defy the American 
people to interfere with their special privileges. 

This is the condition to which the country has been brought 
by a single experiment in paternalism. What would be the 
result if the profits of every corporation hinged on the action 
of government? 

Does any sane human being who knows the history of tariff 
manipulation doubt what the result would be? Is there the 



354 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

faintest shadow of question that organized Plutocracy would 
seize upon all the machinery of national authority? . . . That 
it would make Presidents and Congresses and courts and rule 
the country by the sheer brute force of money? . . . 

We are suffering already from too much personal government^ 
from too much privilege, from too much favoritism. We have 
not kept the faith with our own traditions. We have not kept 
the faith with our own institutions. The way out is not to rush 
headlong into centralization, despotism and plutocracy, hut to 
return to first principles. ... 

It is possible that this Republic was founded in error. It is 
possible that the Declaration of Independence was a mistake 
and the Constitution a blunder. It is possible that the Wash- 
ingtons, the Franklins, the Jeffersons, the Madisons, the 
Adamses, the Jacksons and the Lincolns were wrong, and that 
the Roosevelts, the Perkinses, the Johnsons, the Flinns, the 
Jane Addamses and the Munseys are right; but The World, for 
one, still holds to the faith of the fathers. 

The popular vote gave indication of distrust and un- 
certainty. It revealed such a fermentation of new ideas 
and new party alignments as had not been witnessed 
since 1860. 

The total was but slightly larger than in 1908. The 
Debs vote grew from 420,793 to 900,672, although 
Socialists had feared defections to the Progressives. 
Wilson's vote, 6,293,454, was 115,650 smaller than Bryan's 
in 1908; Democratic losses to the Progressives were not 
balanced by Republican aid. A more amazing fact was 
that the Taft vote, 3,484,980, and the Roosevelt vote, 
4,119,538, were together 74,390 smaller than the Taft 
vote of 1908. Considering the added thousands of 
newly enfranchised women, there must have been many 
stay-at-home Republicans. 

The Wilson electoral vote was 435, that of Roosevelt 
88, that of Taft 8. The Progressive party failed to appear 
in Congress in strength to determine public action. There 
the political division was mainly upon the old lines, as 



^^ARMAGEDDON'^ 355 

Democrats and Republicans, though Progressive pohcies 
were certain to divide or weaken the Republican vote. 
The House was Democratic by 147 members, the new 
Senate proved to be Democratic by six, but the situation 
as affecting action upon the tariff was more complicated 
than the mere count revealed. Not quite all the Demo- 
cratic Senators could be relied upon for a thorough tariff 
revision. 

In not one state legislature were the Progressives put 
into control. In but few were they in position to hold the 
balance of power. In but two states did a Roosevelt 
candidate for Governor run even second. Women voters 
in six states showed no especial gratitude to Mr. Roosevelt 
for his support of suffrage. 

The Roosevelt states were Michigan, Minnesota, 
Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Washington; California 
was divided, eleven electors for Roosevelt, two for 
Wilson. The Taft states were Vermont and Utah. 

One service remained after the election which an in- 
dependent press could perform for Governor Wilson^s ad- 
ministration. As if by secret understanding there arose 
a cry for the postponement of action upon the tariff. The 
friends of Privilege, routed in the field, sought to delay 
action by forebodings of disaster if that policy upon which 
the American people had decided were carried out at once. 

In this emergency The World demanded an extra session 
of the new Congress; not only an extra session, but the 
immediate pledge of an extra session, so that business men 
might not be distracted by uncertainty. Other Demo- 
cratic newspapers and citizens voiced the same views, and 
Governor Wilson, upheld in his own opinion, delayed 
not long to make his position clear in this statement of 
November 15, 1912: 

I shall call Congress together in extraordinary session not later 
than April 15. I shall do this not only because I think that the 
pledges of the party ought to be redeemed as promptly as possible, 



356 THE STORY OF A PAGE 

but also because I know it to be in the interest of business that all 
uncertainty as to what the particular items of tariff revision are to 
be should be removed as soon as possible. 

So closed the battle of 1912 in the rebirth of hope. 
The fruit of thirty years of fighting since Joseph Pulitzer 
re-established The World seemed fair upon the tree. For 
the first time since the civil war the people had taken 
control of their own government. As The World had said 
before election: '^ Sometimes protected industry had lost 
control of the Presidency. Sometimes it had lost control 
of the House of Representatives. Sometimes it had lost 
control of the Senate.'' But for fifty years 'Hhere had 
been no time in which it had lost complete control of all 
the branches of government.'' Now the change in the 
federal government was complete in both the executive 
and legislative departments. 

Not in the sense in which Mr. Roosevelt had used the 
word, it was indeed Armageddon. 

And thus, as '^A New Birth of Freedom," The World 
hailed it on the morning of November 6, 1912, when the^ 
magnitude of the victory first broke upon the vision of 
the waiting country: 

Under the leadership of Woodrow Wilson the Democratic 
party has won its greatest victory since 1852. 

But this victory is no tawdry partisan triumph. It is no 
vote of confidence in the Democratic party as a party. It is 
a mandate from the people, and woe be unto the leaders of 
this Democracy if they falter in obedience to that mandate. 

The country is seething with political discontent in spite of 
its unparalleled material wealth and prosperity. This discon- 
tent is confined to no particular class or section. Rich and poor 
alike, children of fortune and children of poverty, have begun 
to lose faith in the efficacy of their Government to establish 
justice and promote the general welfare. They are not sure 
where the fault lies; they are not united as to the remedy; 
but this they know — ^that their institutions have been seized 



^^ARMAGEDDON^' 357 

by privileged interests and turned against them; that subtle, 
mysterious forces operating unseen have proved time after 
time that their power over public affairs was greater than the 
power of the people as a whole, and they demand that their 
Government be emancipated from this partnership. 

This is the great work that confronts Woodrow Wilson and 
the Democratic party — to restore popular confidence in the 
institutions of the Republic and re-estabhsh a government of 
the people, by the people and for the people. 

For sixteen years the Repubhcan party has been in continuous 
control of national affairs. In 1896 it polled 7,104,799 votes. 
In 1900 it polled 7,207,923 votes. In 1904 it polled 7,623,486 
votes. In 1908 it polled 7,678,908 votes. But suddenly this 
seemingly invincible organization came crashing down to ruin 
because it had not kept the faith. The Democratic party in 
turn will go crashing down to ruin if it does not keep the faith. 

The American people are no longer h^^notized by party 
labels and party emblems. They are concerned with principles 
of government and T\dth parties as a means of translating those 
principles into action. They have made Woodrow Wilson 
President because they beheve that his ideals are their ideals; 
that his courage is their courage, and that he will find a way 
to right the wrongs against which they have protested. 

A man of lesser character, of lower ideals, of smaller ability, 
could not have won the victory that Governor Wilson won yes- 
terday. He could not have appealed to the imagination of the 
country as Woodrow Wilson appealed to it. No man has ever 
been elevated to the Presidency who was more fully the people's 
President than this college professor who scorned ahke the 
support of the bosses and the support of Plutocracy. It is 
a tremendous compliment that the voters have paid to him, 
but the responsibility is equally great. 

If he should fail, the consequences must be doubly disastrous. 
If he succeeds, as The World beheves he -will, a new era will 
have begun in American history, with a new vindication of 
Republican institutions and a new vindication of the immortal 
principles of the Republic. This Nation will indeed have a 
new birth of freedom. 



INDEX 



Anderson, Judge, opinion in Panama 

libel suit, 277. 
Arbitration movement, 68. 
Arbitration treaties, defeat of, 307. 
Archbald, Judge, and The World, 

297, 298. 
"Armageddon," 340. 
Armstrong Committee, 217, 218, 

220 221. 
Arthur, Chester A., and "Soap," 313. 

Baltimore convention of 1912, 344- 
347. 

Bartholdi statue, 37-40. 

Battle-flags, return of, 59. 

Becker case, 240, 242, 243. 

"Belshazzar's Feast," 32. 

"Big Stick Convention, A," 251. 

Blaine, James G., and Republican 
"principles," 24; and the Fisher 
letters, 30, 31; and "Rum, Ro- 
manism and RebelHon," 32; as 
Secretary of State, 66, 67, 68, 69, 
72, 73. 

Blindness, Mr. Pulitzer's, 52-54. 

"Blocks of Five," 314. 

Boer War, 169, 170. 

"Bond Conspiracy, The Great," 138. 

Bond deal of February (1895), 133. 

Bond offer. The World's, 134. 

Bond Ring, the, and The World, 131- 
137. 

"Boodle" Aldermen, 47. 

Brazil, recognition of JElepublic of, 69. 

Bryan, William J., "cross of gold" 
speech, 147, 148; in the cam- 
paign of 1896, 149-153; and im- 
perialism, 172, 173, 174; insists 
on free silver, 176; "The New 
Bryan," 177; return of from trip 
around the world, 247, 248; on 
government ownership, 248; 



"The Map of Bryanism," 249; 
support of by The World in 1908, 
253; first campaign speech of in 
1908, 255, 256; speech of accept- 
ance, 246; defeat of in 1908, 261, 
262; at the Baltimore convention, 
344, 345, 347. 

Canada and reciprocity, 308. 

Catskill water folly, attack on, 294, 
295, 296. 

Chanler, Lewis Stuyvesant, as can- 
didate for Governor, 235. 

Chili, trouble with, 86. 

China-Japan War, and international 
peace, 104. 

Cholera scare of 1892, 87. 

Civil-service reform, 44, 45. 

Clark, Champ, at Baltimore, 345. 

Cleveland, Grover, rise to political 
power, 21; Cleveland and Hoad- 
ley as a ticket, 23; "Why The 
World Likes," 27; and Tammany, 
27; and T/ie *Sw7i, 28; Cleveland's 
tribute to The World, 35; tariff 
message of 1887, 61; and the Mur- 
chison letter, 64; forcing of his 
nomination by The World in 1884, 
82; The World's fight for, in 1892, 
88; The World on, in 1892, 92; and 
the Venezuela crisis, 112-124; and 
the bond sale, 131-137. 

Coal conspiracy of 1892, 87. 

Coal ownership, 189. 

Coler, Comptroller, favored for Gu- 
bernatorial candidate, 177; op- 
posed for nomination later, 177. 

Colombia and the Panama Canal, 
264-267. 

Congress and the Presidents, 329. 

Conkhng, Roscoe, and Mr. Pulitzer, 
55. 



360 



THE STORY OF A PAGE 



Consolidation Act, 155. 

Cortelyou, George B., and The 
World's Ten Questions, 316. 

Courier and Enquirer, 2. 

Courts, the, and The World, 296, 
297. 

"Crime of 1873," history of, 144. 

Croker, ''Boss," and The World's 
prize contest, 156; and the nom- 
ination of Edward M. Shepard, 
181-185; retirement of, 190. 

Cromwell, William Nelson, and the 
Panama scandal, 267, 268, 269, 
272, 273, 274. 

Cummings, Alexander, 2. 

Curtis, William J., 268, 269. 

Dana, Charles A., 8. 

De Lesseps, Ferdinand, 263, 264. 

"Democracy, True," The World's 
programme of, 300. 

"Democracy or Despotism," 351, 
352, 353, 354. 

Democratic Party, and Cleveland in 
1884, 21-36; The World's services 
to, 35, 36; and the tariff, 42, 43, 
65, 97, 98, 154, 205; and civil- 
service reform, 43, 44, 45; and 
taxation, 61, 65; and jingoism, 64; 
and Cleveland in 1892, 82, 83; in 
the administration of 1893-96, 93; 
and "sound money," 140, 141; and 
free silver, 146, 147, 149, 152, 154; 
"terrible choice" confronting the, 
in 1896, 152; and imperialism, 
173-176; in the campaign of 1904, 
200-211; and the return of Bryan 
in 1906, 246-250; in the cam- 
paign of 1908, 252-262; in the 
campaign of 1912, 343-357. 

Democratic victory of 1912, 354, 
355. 

"Democrats, Gold," 148, 175. 

Devery, WiUiam S., 178, 190, 191. 

Dingley bill, 154, 155. 

Dix, John A., The World's support 
of, 334. 

Duque, Gabriel, 273. 

Electoral reform and The World, 

312. 
Equitable case, summary of, 221, 

222 223. 
"Equitable Corruption," 213, 221. 



Equitable Life Assurance Society 
and The World, 221-227. 

Fassett, J. Sloat, and the shirt- 
sleeves incident, 76. 

Federal Elections bill, 69. 

Fiat money in elections before 1896, 
history of, 143. 

Fisher letters, Blaine and the, 30. 

"Floaters," 314. 

Force bill, 69. 

"For President — Woodrow Wilson," 
343. 

Foulke, WiUiam Dudley, letter of, 270. 

Franchise tax, 166, 167, 288. 

Free silver, history of, 143, 144; and 
theDemocrats,*^146, 147, 149, 152, 
154; The World's "Shorter Silver 
Catechism," 149, 150; insisted 
upon by Brvan, 176; in the cam- 
paign of 1904, 201, 203, 204; and 
Judge Parker's telegram, 204. 

"Frying the fat" in 1888, 314. 

Gas Trust and The World,'2SS, 289. 

Gaynor, William J., and McKane, 
99; advocated by The World in 
1898 as Democratic candidate for 
Governor, 165; administration of, 
241; and the Becker case, 241; 
The World's comment on, in 1911. 

George, Henry, nomination of, for 
Mayor, 49; tribute to, 157. 

"George Movement, The, "meaning 
of, 49. 

Gladstone Memorial, 56. 

Godkin, E, L., 80. 

" Gold telegram," Judge Parker's,204. 

Government regulation of corpora- 
tions, review of, 309. 

Grout, Edward M., 193. 

Hackett, Chairman, search of, for 

"discreet" men, 91. 
Hanna, Mark, 138. 
Hanna and Hannaism, 315. 
Harrah, Charles J., letter of, 90. 
Harriman, E. H., and the Equitable, 

224; and the Panama scandal, 

282, 283; and "Where do I 

stand?" 317. 
Harrison, Benjamin, The World's 

comment on, 62, 63; and Blaine, 

66; and Hawaii, 67. 



INDEX 



361 



"Has Mr. Taft Committed Suicide?" 
304, 305. 

Hawaii, Blaine and, 94. 

Hawaii and the Pan-American con- 
ference, 67; and Blaine, 67, 94. 

Hearst, William R., in mayoralty 
campaign of 1905, 229; guberna- 
torial campaign of 1906, 231; and 
Tammany, 232; in mayoralty cam- 
paign of 1909, 239; and Roose- 
velt, 333, 334. 

Herald, The, and Venezuela, 114. 

Higgins, Governor, and insurance 
reform, 214, 217, 219. 

Hill, David B., and The World, 40, 
41; and the Mugwumps, 40, 41; 
election of, as Senator, 79; tariff 
policy of, 80; and **snap" con- 
vention of 1892, 80; as *'an im- 
possible candidate," 81; 1894 
campaign for Governorship, 100; 
his coal-ownership policy, 168, 169. 

Hoadley, Cleveland and, as a ticket, 
23. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, appoint- 
ment of, to Supreme Court, 186. 

Homestead strike, 83, 84. 

Hooker, Justice, and The World, 296. 

Hough, Judge, opinion of, in the 
Panama libel suit, 279. 

Hughes, Charles E., and the insur- 
ance investigation, 217, 218, 219, 
221, 223, 227; rise of, to power, 
228; campaign for Governorship, 
231, 232; election as Governor, 
232; first administration of, 232, 
233; support of, by The World, 
233, 234, 235; and race-track leg- 
islation, 233, 234; re-election of, 
236; second term of, 236; ap- 
pointment to United States Su- 
preme Court, 236; and the Re- 
pubhcan leaders, 237. 

Hurlbert, William Henry, 3. 

Hyde, James H., charges against, 
213, 214; and the Equitable scan- 
dal, 212-227. 

Ice Trust and Mayor Van Wvck, 
179; and The World, 179, 180. 

Imperialism, protest against, 170, 
171, 172, 173. 

Income tax, 104, 105, 106, 285, 286, 
287. 



Independence League - Tammany 

alliance, 231. 
Indianapolis News and the Panama 

Canal scandal, 271, 272, 273, 275, 

281. 
Indiana plot of 1880, 312. 
Initiative and referendum, 299. 
Insurance deal, operation of the, 215, 

216. 
"Is War a Crime?" 162. 

Japanese War, 290, 291, 292. 

Jerome, William Travers, on mayor 
Low, 192; and the Equitable scan- 
dal, 219, 220; election of, as 
district attorney, 229. 

Johnson, Gov. John A,, 250. 

Journalism, Pulitzer School of, 292, 
293. 

Kruger, President, and The World, 
169. 

Labor troubles of 1886, 48. 
"Leprosy and loot," 153. 
Liberty, Statue of, 37-40. 
Life-insurance scandals, 212-227. 
Lodge, Senator, and Venezuela, 122. 
Low, Seth, nomination of, for Mayor, 

181; administration of, 191, 192; 

renom.ination of, 192; The World^s 

comment on, 194. 

McClellan, George^'B., as Mayor- 
alty candidate in 1902, 193; com- 
ment on, 195, 230; and conse- 
quences of a Tammany victory, 
195; re-election of, as Mayor, 231. 

McKane, John Y., 99. 

McKinley bill, 62, 63, 64, 74. 

McKinley, William, prediction of his 
victory, 138; misgiving of The 
World concerning, 146; campaign 
of, in 1896, 150; and the war with 
Spain, 160; and the Boer War, 
169; renomination of, 138, 139. 

McLaughlin, Hugh, and his "noble 
victory," 194. 

Manila victory exclusively reported 
in The World, 162. 

"Map of Bryanism," 249. 

Marble, Manton, 2. 

Million - dollar ' bond offer, The 
World's, 134. 



362 



THE STORY OF A PAGE 



''Monopoly is Slavery," 351. i 

"More Muddling of Government," 
328. 

Morgan, J. P., and the bond sale, 
131, 137; and President Cleve- 
land, 135, 136; and the coal 
strike, 187; and the Equitable, 
225, 226, 227; testimony of , before 
Pujo Committee, 226, 227; and 
the Panama Canal, 272, 273, 274. 

Morgan syndicate and The World, 
132. 

Mugwumps and The World, 43. 

Murchison letter, 64. 

Murphv, Charles F., at Baltimore, 
345, 346; and The World, 349, 350. 

Museums, Sunday opening of. The 
World's fight for, 71. 

''New Birth of Freedom, A," 356, 

357. 
Newspaper power, 184, 185. 
"New York's Great Lesson," 242. 
Nicoll, De Lancey, argum.ent of, in 

Panama suit, 282. 
Nixon, Lewis, 190. 
Northern Securities case, 187, 197, 

198. 

Odell, Benjamin B., Jr., nomina- 
tion of, 178; comment on, 181; as 
candidate for re-election, 188. 

Glney, Richard, and the Sugar 
Trust, 95; and the Venezuela note, 
121. 

Opposition, function of, 260. 

Pacific Railroad frauds, 57. 

Panama Canal, history of, 263, 264; 
history of seizure of, 264-267; and 
President Roosevelt, 265-284. 

Panama hbel suit, 262-284; settle- 
ment of, 277; The World's victory, 
281; toll rates, 284. 

Panama Republic, creation of, 264- 
269. 

Panic of 1893, 93, 94. 

Parker, Alton B., candidacy of, 200- 
211; "gold telegram," 204; let- 

' ter of, to The World, 323; at the 
Baltimore convention, 344. 

Payne-Aldrich tariff, 302, 304, 305. 

Peace, international, and The World, 
168. 



"Peace on Earth," 115. 

Peace treaty between France and the 
United States, 306. 

Perkins, George W., and William 
Travers Jerome, 219, 220. 

Philippines, retention of, 170. 

Platform, The World's, 9. 

Piatt, Thomas C, evil influence of, 
71; and the Tammany victory of, 
1897, 155, 156; and Roosevelt, 164. 

Portsmouth Peace Conference, 292. 

Post, The Evening, and Venezuela, 
114. 

President, power of the, 198. 

"President or a Proxy, A," 254, 255. 

Press, power of, 185. 

Press, The New York, and the return 
of Standard Gil money, 319. 

Prize, The World's, for naming 
Croker's candidate, 156. 

Programme of reforms. The World's, 
300. 

Progressive movement, birth of, 337. 

"Protection, Centennial of," 73. 

Publicity of campaign contributions, 
322. 

Public Utilities bill, 233. 

Pulitzer, Joseph, early events in career 
of, 8; his blindness, 52, 54; methods 
of work, 53 ; message of, at founding 
of World Building, 70; and the 
Homestead strike, 84, 85; receives 
address of thanks from peace so- 
cieties, 124; responds to peace 
societies' address, 126-130; at- 
tack on, by President Roosevelt, 
275; and the Russo-Japanese 
War, 292; and the recall of judges, 
297; Indianapohs speech of 1880, 
312; and Sulzer, 349. 

Pullman strike, 101. 

Race-track legislation, 233. 
Ramapo plot, 167, 168. 
Randall, Samuel J., 16. 
Recall of judges and The World, 296, 

297. 
Recall of Judicial decisions, 299. 
Reciprocity and Canada, 307. 
Reconcentration, 160. 
Reed, Thomas B., 139. 
Reform and The World, 312-324. 
Reforms, programme of The World's, 

300. 



INDEX 



363 



Republican Party, attack on, 18, 19, 
20; Republican "principles," 25; 
in the campaign of 1884, 25-33; 
and Harrison, 62; Republican 
paradoxes, 63; and Blaine, 66; and 
the McKinley bill, 72; the Repub- 
lican record, 89, 90; in the cam- 
paign of 1896; 138-152; and 
sound money, 140; platform of 
1900, 140; outlook in 1900, 174, 
175; and Taft in 1908, 251, 252; 
platform of 1908, 252; in the 
Roosevelt administration, 259; in 
Taft's administration, 301-311. 

"Rocks that Wrecked a Party, The," 
310. 

Rojestvensky's fleet, doom of, 291. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, as Police Com- 
missioner, 108; and The World in 
1898, 164-167; as Vice-Presiden- 
tial candidate, 176; praise of him 
by The World, 386, 197; and the 
Northern Securities victory, 197, 
198; and ** malefactors of great 
wealth," 257; summary of his ad- 
ministration, 259; letter regarding 
Panama Canal, 270; letter to 
William Dudley Foulke, 270; and 
the Panama Canal, 271, 272, 273; 
special Panama message, 275; 
early career of, 325; and the Ed- 
munds campaign, 325; in the leg- 
islature, 325; attitude of The 
World toward, 326, 327; support 
of Blaine, 326; Indianapohs speech 
of, 328; Provincetown speech of, 
328; and Secret Service fund 
scandal, 329; and Congress, 329; 
advocated as Senator, 330; 
World's farewell to, 330, 331; re- 
turn from Africa, 331; in New 
York gubernatorial campaign of 
1910, 332-338; and Hearst, 333, 
334; defeat of, in 1910, 335; 
pledge of, 337; and the "Seven 
Little Governors," 339; his "hat 
in the ring," 339; attempt to grab 
Republican nomination, 340; "Ar- 
mageddon," 340; defeat in 1912, 
342. 

Rosenthal, Herman, murder of, 241. 

"Rum, Romanism and Rebellion," 
32. 

Russia, The World and, 292. 



Ryan, Thomas F., and the Equi- 
table, 223, 224, 225, 226. 

Ryan and Belmont, contributions of, 
321 ; " Ryan-Murphy conspiracy " 
at Baltimore, 346. 

Salutatory, Mr. PuHtzer's, 1. 

Samoan pohcy, 66. 

Schomburgk, Robert, and Vene- 
zuelan boundary dispute, 110, 111. 

School of Journalism, the Pulitzer, 
292, 293. 

Schurz, Carl, and Tammany, 194. 

Schwab, Charles M., letter of, to 
Frick, 189. 

"Scoundrehsm and Vandahsm," 47. 

Secret Service fund scandal, 329. 

"Seven Little Governors, The," 339. 

"Seven Years of Demagogy and 
Denunciation," 330. 

Se\Tnour tariff plank, 15. 

Sharp, "Jake," 47. 

Shepard, Edward M., nomination of, 
by Tammany, 182, 183. 

"Shopping Woman, the," and ^Re- 
publican defeat, 75. 

Silver question, beginning of the, 76, 
77, 78; and The World, 138, 143- 
152; history of, 144; "Shorter 
Silver Catechism," 149, 150. 

Silver campaign fund, in 1896, 315. 

Silver, free, insisted upon bv Bryan, 
176. 

Smith, Delavan, 270, 271. 

Southern Brigadier issue, 14. 

Spain, war with, 159-164. 

Standard Oil campaign contribu- 
tions, 318. 

Strong, jNIayor, and reform in New 
York, 108. 

Subway problem and The World, 
244,245; and Mayor Gaynor, 244, 
245. 

Sugar Trust and Olney, 95. 

Sulzer, William, and Mr. Pulitzer, 
349; and The World, 350. 

Sun, The, unique position of, 8; op- 
position to Cleveland, 28; and 
Venezuela, 113. 

Taft, William Howard, The 
World's comment on, in 1908, 
254, 255; and The World, 301- 
311. 



364 



THE STORY OF A PAGE 



Tammany, Cleveland and, 27; and 
The World, 71, 72; return to 
power of, 71; and the election of 
1897, 155, 156, 157; and the Ice 
Trust, 179; in the Shepard-Low 
campaign, 178-185; in the cam- 
paign of 1903, 190-196; rise of a 
new power in, 191-193; conse- 
quences of a Tammany victory, 
195; in the campaign of 1909, 238, 
239, 240. 

Tariff, "horizontal-reduction," the, 
45; Cleveland's message of 1887, 
61; the Mills bill,^61; tariff-re- 
duction argument of twenty years 
ago, 63; passing; of the Dingley 
bill, 154; Tariff'bill of 1897 and 
The World, 154; Payne- Aldrich 
bill, 302-305; in the campaign of 
1912, 348. (See also under Demo- 
cratic Party and Repubhcan 
Party.) 

''Tattooed Man, The," 30. 

Tilden, Samuel J., The World and, 
17; his weakness as a candidate, 
21. 

Times, The, and Venezuela, 113. 

Treasury, The World's plan for re- 
plenishing, 132. 

Treaty of Paris, the, 173. 

Tribune, The, and Venezuela, 114. 

"Triumphant Plutocracy," 314. 

Trust contributions in 1904, 316, 
317. 



"TwiUght of the Gods, The," 331. 

Van Alen case, the, 96. 

Van Wyck, Robert A., 156; admin- 
istration of, 178; and the Ice 
Trust, 179. 

Venezuela boundary dispute, 110- 
130; Cleveland's message on, 112; 
and The World, 114-124; messages 
of good will from abroad to The 
World, 116-120. 

"Victory for the People, A," 303. 

War taxation, 65. 

Watterson, Colonel, The World's re- 
ply to, 107. 

"Whisky, No Free," 23. 

Whitman, District Attorney, and the 
Becker case, 241. 

Wiesbaden message, Mr. Puhtzer's, 
70. 

Wilson bill, the, 97, 98. 

Wilson, Woodrow, The World's de- 
mand for nomination of, 343; 
nominated, 346; election pre- 
dicted, 346. 

"Wilson — No Compromise with 
Ryan or Murphy," 346. 

World, The, leading editorial in first 
issue of, 1; suppression of in 1864, 
3; St. Clair McKelway on, 3; plat- 
form of in 1883,9; Jennings, R.W., 
on, 10; comment of Philadelphia 
Chronicle on, 11. 



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